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This article discusses research examining the enabling and constraining factors that influence African social scientists' involvement in malaria control. Findings showed that most participants did not necessarily seek malaria as a career path. Having a mentor who provided research and training opportunities, and developing strong technical skills in malaria control and grant or proposal writing facilitated career opportunities in malaria. A paucity of jobs and funding and inadequate technical skills in malaria limited the type and number of opportunities available to social scientists in malaria control. Understanding the factors that influence job satisfaction, recruitment and retention in malaria control is necessary for better integration of social scientists into malaria control. However, given the wide array of skills that social scientists have and the variety of deadly diseases competing for attention in sub-Saharan Africa, it might be more cost effective to employ social scientists to work broadly on issues common to communicable diseases in general rather than solely on malaria

This policy brief is concerned with the involvement of district-level health workers in participatory approaches at community level. Using participatory approaches improves healthworkers' communication skills and validates community knowledge. This emerged from a study carried out by the Malaria Knowledge Programme (MKP) in Ghana where it was clear that the interaction and communication that took place between health workers and community members provided opportunities for dialogue and building new relationships

The report shows the overall activities of the Malaria Knowledge Programme during 2003-2004. It initially outlines the research activities and the new knowledge outputs. Using a framework developed by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine's Vulnerability and Health Alliance the report contains an evaluation of the implications and effects of the research findings on those most vulnerable to the effects of malaria

The article describes the MIM project. The US National Library of Medicine, working in concert with the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM), has developed and implemented a unique organisational and technical strategy to connect malaria research sites to the Internet for purposes of facilitating North-South scientific communications and access to electronic information resources on the Web. The model employs microwave and VSAT technologies, and shares bandwidth and costs among participating malaria research sites and their respective research funders in Mali, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and other sub-Saharan locations affiliated with MIM

This review analyses the range and quality of the evidence base that was used to change the drug policy in Kenya from chloroquine to SP and examines the process of consensus building and decision making. The review illustrates the difficulties in translating sensitivity data with gross geographical, temporal and methodological variations into national treatment policy. The process was complicated by limited options, unknown adverse effects of replacement therapies, cost, as well as limited guidance on factors pertinent to changing the drug policy for malaria. Although more than 50% of the studies showed parasitological failures by 1995, there was a general lack of consensus on the principles for assessing drug failures, the inclusion criteria for the study subjects and the relative benefits of parasitological and clinical assessments. A change in international recommendations for assessment of drug efficacy in 1996 from parasitological to clinical response further perplexed the decisions. There is an urgent need for international standards and evidence-based guidelines to provide a framework to assist the process by which decision-makers in malaria-endemic countries can make rational choices for antimalarial drug policy change

A brief but insightful report on lessons learned in malaria prevention. These are carefully explained and expanded in the text and include points such as the impact of urbanisation in Africa on malaria epidemiology; the need for simple, rapid but scientifically sound methods for assssing transmission; the role of risk area mapping in surveillance and project planning; and the need for careful operational research prior to implementing Insecticide Treated Net (ITN) programmes