2020 was a strange and difficult year for all. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a new set of challenges to the project, forcing the team to be creative and find new ways to progress on our goal of developing a new vector control tool for malaria. Our plans changed on nearly every front.
In the wider malaria community it was a relief to see that the progress of the last 20 years in reducing malaria incidence was not undone. Even under the worst of circumstances during the pandemic, 90% of planned malaria programmes went ahead with 200 million mosquito repellent nets distributed and 20 million children protected with anti-malarial drugs – saving hundreds of thousands of lives as a result.
Closer to home, with thanks to our teams’ commitment to a world free of malaria, we also have a number of positive developments to report from the project across Africa, Europe and North America.