Public Health, Africa Can the COVID playbook help end malaria?

In a Perry World House conversation, Matthew Laurens, Martina Mchenga, and Drew Weissman discussed how lessons from a global pandemic could help in the fight to eradicate malaria.

For millennia, malaria has plagued humanity, causing fever, headache, and chills, which can quickly progress to severe illness and respiratory distress. A pathogen transmitted by mosquitoes, malaria is preventable and curable and yet continues to cause more than 600,000 deaths per year, primarily affecting sub-Saharan African children younger than 6. 

A Sept. 12 Perry World House event, “Can the COVID Playbook Help End Malaria?”, looked at the historic fight against this disease, featuring discussions about new developments in mRNA vaccine technologies and lessons learned from the global COVID-19 pandemic. 

Moderated by Carol McLaughlin, senior advisor for global public health at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the School for Social Policy & Practice and an infectious disease physician in the Perelman School of Medicine, the panel included Matthew Laurens, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Center for Vaccine Development; Martina Mchenga, a health economist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town; and Drew Weissman, Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research in the Perelman School of Medicine.

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