Malaria has been the scourge of humanity for too long. Ever since scientists at the end of the 19th century discovered that the malaria parasite is transmitted by mosquitoes, controlling the ‘malaria mosquitoes’ has been the most effective tool against malaria. Yet as recently as 2020, there were still 241 million cases of malaria globally, and at least 627,000 deaths, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the last twenty years, there has been a significant increase in mosquito control interventions. The development and mass distribution of long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets offered protection to millions of people from the bites of malaria-infected mosquitoes. Along with increased access to effective drugs to treat malaria and improved diagnostic tests, remarkable progress has been made in reducing the burden of malaria, bringing us closer to the goal of eliminating this disease.

However, malaria mosquitoes are becoming resistant to the insecticides that have been so effective at controlling them. This course will look at why and how this is happening, its impact, and what can be practically done to address it. This helps us to remain ahead of the game in the fight against malaria.

“Weeks”, “Chapters” and invitation to comment

Please note that this course was originally published by the University of Basel on FutureLearn. FutureLearn is a global platform offering online courses that encourage social learning, including discussions between learners. On FutureLearn, we added comment sections to certain steps and measured course durations in weeks rather than in chapters.

Here on Tales, we measure courses in chapters. These chapters are equivalent to the “weeks” on FutureLearn. So when you watch a video here and hear an educator talking about “weeks”, you’ll know that this was because the videos were geared towards FutureLearn’s set-up.

Another difference to FutureLearn is the comment option. The educators in the videos will sometimes invite you to discuss something in the comments section. If you don’t see a comment option here on Tales, then the course is not open to comments at this moment in time. But for certain periods of time announced in advance, this course will be open to comments.

The good news is that either way, you can freely access the course and all of its contents at any time. If the comment section is not open, why not write down your comments as you go through the course? That way you can keep track of how your knowledge changes. And should you be able to participate in one of the authors’ face-to-face courses, you can then refer back to your comments and discuss them with your peers.

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