Send for Kochi

WHO is hoping that Arata Kochi, the new director of its global malaria programme, will inject new life into the scheme. As he approaches his first anniversary in the job, Christiane Rehwagen asks him how things are progressing

In 2005 the malaria programme run by the World Health Organization reached a low point. The programme was being criticised by scientists, who accused its organisers of not following their own policies and not clearly defining treatment guidelines. Furthermore, member states were getting the impression that their money was being unwisely spent on WHO's malaria efforts.

So Lee Jong-wook, the former director general of WHO who died in May, sent for Arata Kochi, who had previously run WHO's programme to eradicate tuberculosis. He persuaded Kochi to give up his advisory post at the United Nations in New York and take up a new position as head of WHO's global malaria programme.

Now, after 10 months in his new job, Kochi says: “We are finally coming close to developing clear strategies on how to implement the three main interventions to fight malaria, and we are progressing towards making them public.” The three mainstays of the programme are drug treatment, coupled with the use of bed nets treated with insecticide and indoor spraying with insecticide.

Kochi's previous record in the tuberculosis programme …