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Ivermectin’s Potential in the Fight Against Malaria

Release Date: 08/05/2025

EXTENDED: Baby Wraps and Malaria – A New Tool to Protect Young Children (with Ross Boyce)

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

In sub-Saharan Africa, mothers often carry their babies on their backs in colorful cotton wraps called lesu. Could treating these wraps with insecticide help prevent malaria? Dr. Ross Boyce discusses a groundbreaking study in Uganda showing that permethrin-treated wraps significantly reduce malaria in infants – and further, what this could mean for protecting the youngest and most vulnerable children from this often fatal disease.

Insecticide-Treated Baby Wraps Cut Malaria Cases by Two-Thirds in Uganda

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

A new study in rural western Uganda finds that treating baby-carrying cloths, or lesu, with an insecticide with modest repellent effect significantly reduces malaria infections in young children. Transcript In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, mothers carry their young children on their backs in colorful cotton wraps called lesu. Could treating these cloths with insecticide reduce malaria transmission? A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine explored this question in rural western Uganda, where malaria is transmitted year-round. Researchers enrolled 400 mothers with children...

EXTENDED: Boosting Mosquito Immunity to Fight Malaria (with Emma Camacho)

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

Too much can kill the mosquito — too little can also kill it. But the right amount can strengthen the mosquito’s defenses and stop malaria transmission. Today, the Goldilocks dose. Emma Camacho shares how a natural compound called L-DOPA strengthens mosquitoes’ defenses at just the right concentration, revealing a new way to block malaria transmission.

The Goldilocks Dose: Modulating Mosquito Diet to Control Malaria

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

Feeding mosquitoes L-DOPA can either strengthen their defences against malaria or shorten their lifespan — showing that in vector control, the dose makes the difference Transcript As with all medicine, the dose determines whether something helps or harms. Researchers recently looked at a substance commonly found in mosquito habitats that might form part of their diet. It’s called L-3-4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, or L-DOPA. Mosquitoes use it as a source of melanin. At low doses – up to a concentration of 2% – L-DOPA was toxic to mosquitoes and reduced the number of malaria parasites they...

SPECIAL: Hackathons for Malaria Genetic Epidemiology (with Bryan Greenhouse)

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

How do you turn vast amounts of genetic data into actionable insight – efficiently and accurately? Professor Bryan Greenhouse of UCSF discusses a series of “hackathons” at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute (JHMRI) that bring together scientists from around the world to tackle one of the biggest challenges in malaria research: analyzing parasite genetics. By developing open-source tools, workflows, and training resources, these collaborations are making cutting-edge analysis more accessible to labs and public health programs everywhere.

EXTENDED: From River Blindness to Malaria Control – The Ivermectin Story (with Carlos Chaccour and Joseph Mwangangi)

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

In Kwale, Kenya, where bed nets alone can’t stop malaria, researchers are testing ivermectin – a drug long used to treat parasitic infections – as a new way to kill mosquitoes. Trials show a 26% drop in malaria cases and added benefits against other mosquito-borne diseases, suggesting ivermectin could be a scalable, community-driven tool in the fight against insecticide resistance. With Carlos Chaccour (researcher at the Navarra Center for International Development) and Joseph Mwangangi (scientist at KEMRI) About The Podcast The Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute is produced by the Johns...

Ivermectin’s Potential in the Fight Against Malaria

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

About The Podcast The Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute podcast is produced by the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute to highlight impactful malaria research and to share it with the global community.

EXTENDED: The Turning Point – What Drives Malaria to Become Severe? (with Mark Travassos, Mahamadou Ali Thera and Rafal Sobota)

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

Focusing on patients in Mali, researchers examine why some children develop life-threatening complications like cerebral malaria or severe malarial anemia. With Mark Travassos (University of Maryland School of Medicine), Mahamadou Ali Thera (University of Science Techniques and Technologies of Bamako), and Rafal Sobota (Northwestern University). About The Podcast The Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute is produced by the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute to highlight impactful malaria research and to share it with the global community.

What Severe Malaria Cases Have In Common

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

Although severe malaria presents in different clinical forms – such as cerebral malaria or severe malarial anemia – a new study reveals that all severe cases have one thing in common: a shared inflammatory signature Transcript Whilst most cases of malaria are mild, some take a dangerous turn. In severe cases, the malaria parasite can overwhelm the body, disrupting the blood-brain barrier and leading to cerebral malaria, or destroying so many red blood cells that it triggers life-threatening anemia. Now, a new study has taken a closer look at this progression – from uncomplicated malaria...

EXTENDED: Curing the Mosquito – Bed Nets That Target Parasites (with Alexandra Probst)

Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute

Dr. Alexandra Probst discusses a breakthrough in malaria prevention: bed nets coated with anti-parasitic drugs that stop transmission by curing infected mosquitoes. With Alexandra Probst, former graduate student at Harvard University. About The Podcast The Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute is produced by the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute to highlight impactful malaria research and to share it with the global community.

More Episodes

A new study in Kenya shows that mass drug administration of ivermectin safely reduced malaria cases by 26%, offering a promising supplement to insecticide-based prevention.

Transcript

Bed nets and insecticides are commonly used to prevent malaria transmission. But insecticide resistance is making those tools less effective.

There’s a growing interest in ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug normally used to treat neglected tropical diseases such as river blindness or scabies, that is also capable of killing the Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria.

In a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from ISGlobal, an institute in Barcelona, investigated whether ivermectin given to at-risk populations en masse – in a policy of ‘mass drug administration’ – might supplement the use of insecticides to reduce malaria transmission.

In Kwale, a coastal county in Kenya where malaria is present year-round, nearly twenty-nine thousand people took part.

Half were given ivermectin at 400μg per kilogram of bodyweight. The other half were given 400mg of albendazole, not an antimalarial drug, but an anti-worming drug comparable to ivermectin.

Each group took the drug once a month for three months. The study looked at both the efficacy and safety of the two interventions.

Both drugs proved safe, but ivermectin had a greater impact, leading to a 26% reduction in malaria cases – higher than the 20% efficacy benchmark set by the World Health Organization.

Source

Source: Ivermectin to Control Malaria — A Cluster-Randomized Trial [NEJM]

About The Podcast

The Johns Hopkins Malaria Minute podcast is produced by the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute to highlight impactful malaria research and to share it with the global community.

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