Contracting malaria as a child helped determine Dr Eulambius Mlugu’s career path. Now a lecturer at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in the United Republic of Tanzania, he recently completed TDR’s Clinical Research Leadership Fellowship, during which he played a key role in developing an action plan recently endorsed by East African health ministers to tackle the growing threat of antimalarial drug resistance.
More than 30 years ago, when Dr Eulambius Mlugu was growing up in a remote Tanzanian village, he contracted a severe case of malaria. He realizes now just how ill he was; if it hadn’t been for his mother purchasing chloroquine, he might not be here today. After a three-day course, his health improved and he thought “when I grow up, I want to do something to make sure that children don't get symptoms like this.”
After receiving his PhD in clinical pharmacology from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Eulambius returned to Tanzania to become a lecturer at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science to conduct research on antimalarial drug resistance in Africa.
Building on his experiences, his participation in TDR’s Clinical Research Leadership fellowship at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa enabled him to take the next critical steps in his career, to hone his research and leadership skills.
“The fellowship has positively affected my professional and academic career,” says Eulambius. “It has shaped me into an impactful researcher and a leader at large. Working closely with my mentor Professor Karen Barnes at UCT helped me develop competencies, including evidence synthesis and the translation of evidence into policies, as well as leadership skills.”
Developing the Regional Detailed Action Plan for Responding to Antimalarial Drug Resistance in East Africa
The highlight of his fellowship was to help develop a comprehensive Regional Detailed Action Plan (DAP) to address the threat of malaria-resistant drugs in the region.
Malaria remains a significant public health challenge in East Africa, where more than 300 million people, approximately 80 per cent of the region’s population, are at risk. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are currently recommended to treat malaria. However, there is mounting evidence of artemisinin-resistant malaria parasites in East Africa, the Horn of Africa and in parts of Southern Africa. As previously seen in South-East Asia, this can lead to higher rates of ACT failure and undermine global malaria control efforts. Such resistance reinforces the need for coordinated and cross-border interventions.
It was Eulambius’s role to co-design the action plan, which emphasizes the urgent need to gather more data on drug resistance and diversify existing antimalarial therapies to curb the spread of resistant parasites. Eulambius played a central role in the process, facilitating consensus building with key regional and global stakeholders.
From research to policy
In May 2025, East African ministers of health adopted the action plan. This decision marked a crucial step in strengthening cross-border coordination to address the growing threat of drug-resistant malaria. In going forward, each country will need to report on progress.
Karen said: “While countries can do their best on their own, unless there's regional cohesion, those hot spots will remain. Malaria knows no borders. Eulambius’s efforts have aided this huge achievement.”
Recognizing how important it is for policy-makers and researchers to work together, Eulambius says: “it is difficult sometimes for policy-makers to extract the key points from scientific presentations. So the collaboration between researchers and policy-makers is crucial – to ensure relevant and timely evidence is generated and then translated into actionable information that can aid policy decisions.”
However, one of the biggest hurdles to mitigate drug resistance will be funding. Eulambius hopes that this World Malaria Day makes funders aware not only of the importance of implementation research on malaria, but how achievable it is to reduce the burden of malaria by acting now: “It's a preventable and treatable disease, and it's cost-effective low-hanging fruit.”
For more information, please contact Dr Mahnaz Vahedi.