Experts from UGA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University will gather March 19 to discuss malaria in a symposium titled “The Secret Life of Malaria-A Global Journey to Cure and Prevention.”
Organized by UGA’s Division of One Health, the symposium will take place in Room 175 of the Paul D. Coverdell Center from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is open free to the public. Registration is required at ugaonehealthmalaria.eventbrite.com. A free lunch will be provided to registered attendees.
Experts at this symposium will discuss diagnostics, therapeutics and prevention of malaria including recent findings and new approaches.
Nearly 3.3 billion people are at risk of malaria, according to the World Health Organization, and the mosquito-borne disease kills more than half a million people each year. Malaria is particularly deadly for children younger than 5.
The WHO estimates that one child dies of malaria every minute. There are many different types of malaria that can infect birds, reptiles, humans and other animals. Approaches to tackling this disease in humans can be translated to the prevention and treatment of disease in animals.
Guest speakers at this symposium are Mary Galinski of Emory University and Venkatachalam Udhayakumar of the CDC. The program director of Malaria Host-Pathogen Interaction Center, Galinksi also will speak March 18 at 5:30 p.m. in the Chapel as part of the Voices from the Vanguard lecture series. Udhayakumar works in the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria.
UGA speakers at the symposium include Donald E. Champagne from the entomology department in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Juan B. Gutierrez from the mathematics department in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; Jessica C. Kissinger from the genetics department in the Franklin College and co-principal investigator at the Malaria Host-Pathogen Interaction Center; Julie M. Moore, Owino Simon Odera and David S. Peterson from the infectious diseases department of the College of Veterinary Medicine; and Vasant Muralidharan from the cellular biology of the Franklin College.
The symposium also will feature the screening of the documentary An Extraordinary Effort to Catch a Killer in the Dark. Presented by Imagine No Malaria, the documentary follows the stories of national and global efforts to combat malaria.
Symposium sponsors include the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute, the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the cellular biology department in Franklin College, the Faculty of Infectious Diseases, the Institute of Bioinformatics and the Office of the Vice President for Research.