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Mapping Africa-driven innovation to fight malaria 

Posted 18th November 2024 by Emile Dawisha

United to Beat Malaria, in partnership with RBM Partnership to End Malaria, just launched the Next Chapter of Progress StoryMap that showcases over 50 Africa-driven partnerships driving sustainable progress towards malaria elimination. 

A story map is a visual representation using maps to organize and outline the structure of a narrative or project. The purpose of the story map is to raise awareness about the wave of Africa-driven innovation and promote continued local-global collaboration across the continent.  

Recent years have shown that the path to malaria elimination won’t be linear. After achieving historic gains from 2000 to 2015, progress against the disease has since stagnated due to drug and insecticide resistance, climate change, financing gaps, and other threats.  

Yet, there are so many reasons to feel optimistic about the future of the malaria fight!  

We’re seeing an unprecedented wave of innovation and local-global collaboration in this space in recent years. New vaccines, next-generation bed nets and drugs, and a host of other promising new malaria tools in the innovation pipeline, such as gene drive mosquitoes, are starting to reach millions of people across Africa, which carries 96% of the global malaria burden.  

We’re excited to feature Target Malaria’s Burkina Faso, Ghana and Uganda teams in the story map, highlighting how new gene editing techniques and genetically modified mosquitoes could help end malaria. 

The StoryMap showcases local-global partnerships under four categories: research and development, manufacturing and supply chain, planning and implementation, and community engagement and action. The story map is to be shared with key decision makers, technical experts, and media outlets; and new elements and stories will be added to this evergreen map. 

Make sure to check out the StoryMap here to learn more. And visit our social media toolkit to help spread the word.