“Those are people who are being killed socially.”
That is how Dr. Marcus Lacerda, one of the world’s leading malaria researchers, describes children whose futures are shaped by repeated bouts of vivax malaria.
Lacerda, who joined TDR as Director in March 2026, has spent more than 25 years studying infectious diseases in the Brazilian Amazon. He is perhaps best known as a driving force behind tafenoquine, the first single-dose radical cure for Plasmodium vivax malaria approved in four decades.
Speaking on the latest episode of Trailblazers with Garry, hosted by Dr. Garry Aslanyan, Lacerda reflected on the experiences that have shaped his career and the lessons he has learned over decades of work in tropical medicine.
His path began as a young medical student when Catholic missionaries invited him to visit remote communities in the Amazon.
”I fell in love [with] the population, I fell in love [with] the geography,” he recalled. He ultimately became convinced that his life’s calling was to practice medicine, particularly focusing on the diseases prevalent in the Amazon.
That decision led him to focus on vivax malaria, a disease often overshadowed by more deadly infections but one that carries profound social consequences.
One study conducted by a master’s student in the Amazon followed hundreds of children and found that those who had experienced at least one episode of vivax malaria performed worse in school than their peers.
”Malaria sometimes kills, but sometimes it kills you in the sense of not allowing those kids to go to the university,” Lacerda said.
Despite major advances in diagnostics, treatment and prevention, Lacerda argues that scientific innovation alone will not eliminate malaria.
”So now we have the tools, but we don’t have the same appetite for eradication,” he said, noting that competing national priorities have pushed malaria down the global agenda.
For Lacerda, the challenge ahead is not only developing new solutions but ensuring countries have the support and determination needed to put existing ones into practice.
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