Mwele Malecela, the director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, died in Geneva on February 10, 2022, from complications relating to cancer, which she had been diagnosed with in 2019. She was 59.
Malecela had held her WHO post since 2018. One of her key achievements was the development of a road map for preventing, controlling, or eliminating the 20 diseases and disease groups listed as neglected tropical diseases through 2030. Combined, these diseases affect 1.7 billion people worldwide, the WHO estimates.
In an email to The Scientist, Ashok Moloo, an information officer in Malecela’s department, writes that in addition to leading the development and publication of the road map, the parasitologist was instrumental in raising the profile of neglected diseases globally.
Born on March 26, 1963 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Malecela was the daughter of John Malecela, who would serve as the ...
