Health edior wins ‘ Malaria No More ’ fellowship to Asia

Chioma Umeha - Health Editor Newswatch Times
Chioma Umeha, Health Editor Newswatch Times, including eight others are to report on malaria research and development, drug resistance, and innoation in Thailand and Cambodia.

Malaria No More’ on Thursday, introduced the winners of a new press fellowship that gives journalists the opportunity to learn firsthand about the progress and challenges in the malaria fight.

More than 225 journalists from more than 50 countries applied for the four-day fellowship to Thailand and Cambodia. Malaria No More and the International Center for Journalists selected nine journalists who will connect with top researchers, government officials and small business leaders to learn more about malaria research and innovation.

The trip will also focus on cross-border migration and disease control issues.The programme comes at a pivotal time in the malaria fight: Earlier this week, a Chinese scientist shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work on artemisinin, a key antimalarial drug that now faces resistance in Southeast Asia.

Speaking at the United Nations (UN) last week, President Obama said it was a “moral outrage” that so many children are just “one mosquito bite away from death.”The following day, Bill Gates and Ray Chambers, the U.N. special envoy for malaria, outlined a vision for malaria eradication within the next 25 years in a new report, From Aspiration to Action: What Will it Take to End Malaria?

Malaria deaths have declined by 60 per cent in the past 15 years, but the disease still kills almost 500,000 people every year – most of them children. Malaria is increasingly resistant to the tools we have to fight it. There is growing consensus that eradication is the only sustainable solution to the deadly disease.

“The quest to end malaria is one of the most important stories of our time,” said Susan Byrnes, managing director of strategic communications for Malaria No More. “We are thrilled that so many top-notch journalists from all over the world want to learn more about the issues and tell the story of what it will take to rid the world of one of its deadliest diseases.”

The programme is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Fellows will participate in issue briefings, roundtables, and conversations with experts and high-level officials during their trip in early November.

The nine journalists are: Sarika Bansal, Medium – Editor; Casey Hynes, Independent journalist; Joshua Keating, SLATE – Staff Writer; Phillip Martin, PRI’s The World/WNYC The Takeaway – Sr. Investigative Reporter; Sydney Lupkin, VICE News/MedPage Today – Enterprise Health Reporter and Eulimar Nunez, Univision – Multimedia Health Producer.

Others are,  Jyoti   Shelar, Mumbai Mirror (India) – Special Correspondent; Chioma Umeha, Newswatch Times, Ltd (Nigeria) – Health Editor and Astrid Zweynert, Thompson Reuters Foundation – Editor.


This story was published in Newswatch Times on October 10, 2015.

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