Morning Briefing

"Hopes of controlling malaria in Africa could be wrecked by criminals who are circulating counterfeit and substandard drugs, threatening millions of lives, scientists" said in a study published in the Malaria Journal last month, the Guardian reports. "They are calling for public health authorities to take urgent action to preserve the efficacy of the antimalarials now being used in the worst-hit areas of the continent," the newspaper adds (Boseley, 1/16). "The counterfeit medicines could harm patients and promote drug resistance among malaria parasites, warns the study, funded by the Wellcome Trust," BBC News writes (1/16).