News

NAIROBI, REPUBLIC OF KENYA
9-12 December 2019

Over 309 delegates from across the African continent, as well as Honduras, Pakistan or Somalia,  are attending the Roll Back Malaria meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. to find solutions on how malaria can be prevented.

Despite the ongoing efforts, malaria continues to be one of the biggest public health threats in Africa South of the Sahara. With an estimated 200 million malaria cases and 403 000 deaths across the region in 2017 alone, of which 61% were children aged less than 5 years, Africa continues to bear the biggest burden of the epidemic.

While significant progress has been achieved – 40 per cent reduction in mortality and 20 per cent reduction of incidence in this decade alone, including malaria elimination in the Democratic Republic of Algeria, the African continent still accounts for over 93% of the global malaria burden. 

In view of the huge challenges that malaria poses to continental health security and its impact to the broader development agenda, we renewed our commitment to accelerate efforts to address the stalling progress in malaria control and elimination.

To drive action for resource mobilisation, Member States were requested,  with support of the African Union Commission, RECs, RBM Partnership to End Malaria, ALMA and partners, to accelerate the establishment of national End Malaria Councils and Malaria Funds, to galvanise political commitment and increased domestic investments from the public and private sector.

However, There is a real threat that in African countries that have made huge progress and reaching elimination of malaria that the disease will be de-prioritised by both governments and development partners thus heavily impacting on progress made through decades of sustained investment and action.

It is therefore encouraging that various  countries are coming up with domestic initiatives that include both the public and private sectors and communities to end malaria for good.

Prime Production covered the Roll Back Malaria meeting  by providing simultaneous interpreting in French, Spanish, English and Portuguese as well as equipment during the 5 days workshop (4 booths)