| Project Detail |
With increased cases and death globally (2019, 2020, 2021) and being off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals 3.3, malaria is a major global health threat, impacting mainly children under 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa. This burden is exacerbated by new challenges such as increasing resistance to malarial drugs or climate change. The project aims to shape effective global and national malaria capacities and elimination strategies, by providing the necessary scientific evidence and strengthening capacities of malaria-affected countries.
Thanks to the scale-up of effective malaria vector control tools such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets, diagnostics and medicines, malaria deaths reduced from 897’000 to 568’000 over the period 2000-2019. Despite this progress, there were an estimated 619’000 malaria deaths and 247 million cases globally in 2021. World Health Organization (WHO) global strategy and Roll Back Malaria (RBM) action plan, aligned with the 2016-2030 timeline of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), provide overall strategic direction towards the ambitious 2030 malaria goals to reduce malaria mortality by 40% by 2020 (compared with 2015) and to increase the number of malaria-free countries by additional 10 and 35 countries by 2020 and 2030, respectively. To support the implementation of these strategies, the malaria control community relies on networks that respond to real-life conditions and translate evidence stemming into practical guidelines and policies. The Roll Back Malaria working groups, managed and led Roll Back Malaria partners such as Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, provide a unique multi-stakeholder dialogue platform and are complementary to the technical and small WHO expert groups that have no partnerships with the private sector. The Global Malaria Technical & Training Support Package (GlobMal), supported by the SDC since 2013, addresses SDG 3.3 of ending the epidemic of malaria and SDG 17 of strengthening global partnerships and bringing stakeholders together to achieve the 2030 targets. It provides support to the global and national malaria control and elimination effort, generates scientific evidence to inform global malaria strategies and helps translate them into country specific action, through global working groups on vector control, case management (malaria treatment) and cross-sectoral action against malaria, and through the training of malaria affected countries’ scientists and national malaria control managers. GlobMal also brings in Swiss expertise and know-how. The strong role of Switzerland is appreciated, as it is considered a “neutral” agent of knowledge with no political agenda.
To contribute to global malaria control and elimination by shaping global and national malaria control and elimination evidence-based policies and ultimately increase the number of malaria free zones. |
