World Malaria Day - Part One

by Alanna Shaikh

Published April 25, 2009 @ 12:30PM PT

(photo credit: Global Malaria Action Plan)

Today, April 25th, is World Malaria Day. This post is about malaria in general. My second post, going up tomorrow, will be about a specific malaria program that is showing success in Rwanda.

So, without futher ado, some general information about Malaria:

From the WHO Roll Back Malaria site:

The international malaria community has merely two years to meet the 2010 targets of delivering effective and affordable protection and treatment to all people at risk of malaria, as called for by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.

Reducing the impact of malaria would significantly propel efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, agreed by every United Nations member state. These include not only the goal of combatting the disease itself, but also goals related to women's and children's rights and health, access to education and the reduction of extreme poverty.

Hundreds of RBM partners - governments, international organizations, companies, academic and research institutions, foundations, NGOs and individuals - are already gaining ground against malaria. Diverse partner initiatives are guided by a single strategy, outlined in the Global Malaria Action Plan.

And from the Global Malaria Action Plan:

Three Components of the Global Strategy: Control, Elimination and Research

The Global Strategy consists of three components (Figure II.1) that will ensure these ambitious goals can be achieved: 1) Controlling malaria, 2) Eliminating malaria and 3) Research into new tools and approaches.

1. Control. The majority of malaria-endemic countries can make a substantial impact on their malaria burden by controlling it with existing tools. By first scaling up appropriate interventions for all populations at risk and then sustaining control over time, malaria will cease to be a major source of deaths world-wide.

2. Elimination. Reducing to zero all locally-acquired infections within a country will bring the world closer to the ambitious goal of global eradication. Some countries are currently engaging in elimination and more will transition to elimination after achieving control provided there is strong rationale for this move. In high transmission settings, complete interruption of malaria transmission will require additional, new control tools.[1]Global malaria control and elimination: report of a technical review. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2008.

3. Research. Malaria control and elimination efforts will require continued research to be successful. International research is needed to create new tools, as well as inform policy and improve operational implementation of strategies. Then, national and local health systems must focus on how to use the tools and sustain the gains.