This year’s recipient of a special award at the Annual Meeting — the Award for Extraordinary Leadership in the Fight Against Malaria — is Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, the US Global Malaria Coordinator who since 2006 has led the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). He recently spent time talking with ASTMH blogger Matthew Davis about all things malaria.
Ziemer spoke of the need to convince Americans that investing in malaria control is money well spent, of PMI’s commitment to preserving the effectiveness of bednets and indoor spraying campaigns at a time of rising insecticide resistance, and why the “E words” — elimination and eradication — first elicited gasps when uttered by Bill Gates but now are goals more widely embraced by the malaria community.