Not only is today ANZAC Day; it’s also the day we note the achievements and continuing challenges of the Rollback Malaria campaign – World Malaria Day.

To mark the occasion, the Lancet has run a special feature edition on malaria.

The μGnome has nailed his colours to the mast in our FACTM pt 1 malaria series. Here is a short summary; highlights of the malaria unit.

Download (PPT, 910KB)

The second Charlie’s postgraduate Tropical Medicine sessions takes place next Tuesday (27th April)  at 06:50 in the ED seminar room. Notes can be found on this site here.

This is part of the FACTM pt 1 series, and concludes our malaria unit.

Revision of the earlier two modules is also available on this site.

A light breakfast will be provided.

For those who’ve been following the μGnome’s series on all things malarial, the full set of learning modules can now be found on the Priobe Net Plasmodium page, along with an interactive malaria risk map and other malaria resources.

Powerpoint files can be downloaded in PDF for personal and educational use. There are separate PDFs here if all you need is the Plasmodium life cycle or the mosquito recognition chart. A link has been added to the WHO interactive travel health map. This allows you to update the information as changing malaria risk alters the global risk map. If studying for the FACTM pt 1, note the chapters in the recommended list of short textbooks, and a superbly written chapter on malaria in Manson’s Tropical Diseases by Nick White.

Features of adult female Anopheles mosquito

(redrawn & modified from M Service, Medical Entomology for Students, 4th edn, CUP, 2008)

After a week’s frenetic germ-hunting and malaria-mugging, μGnome celebrated a weekend off by getting out his drawing set again to sketch diagrams of malaria-bearing mosquitoes. So now we have our first set of mosquito recognition charts – for getting to know enemy aircraft. Well, if that works for you, why not run with it?  More charts will be released as we work our way through the FACTM pt 1 revision series.

If this whets your appetite for more, these figures were redrawn from Mike Service’s excellent Medical Entomology for Students, now in its fourth edition. The μGnome remembers using an earlier edition on the long path to μgnomic wisdom. While you’re waiting for the book to arrive, you could check out the Wikipedia post on mosquitoes.