Malaria is a preventable disease. As Keziah L. Malm and Fredros Okumu welcome you to this course, they summarise the history of the struggle against malaria with its victories and new challenges.

At the end of the 19th century, scientists discovered that mosquitoes transmitted the parasite responsible for malaria. During the 20th century and particularly during the last 20 years, the control of the disease has made great progress. Breaking the transmission cycle has proven to be most effective. Mosquitoes needed to be prevented from biting people, the mosquito population had to be reduced. Insecticides played a key role in this endeavour. Malaria cases seemed to be decreasing at a constant rate.

However, in recent years this rate has slowed. Sometimes the decrease even stopped. Interventions based on insecticides became less effective as mosquitoes became less susceptible to them. These days, as mosquitoes develop resistance against insecticides, malaria cases might quickly rise again. Something needs to be done to prevent and mitigate this.

The central question of this course is:

• How can we stay ahead of the game in the fight against malaria?

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