New malaria strategy launched
By Wezzie Gausi
The Ministry of Health has launched a new National Malaria Strategy that will be in operation from 2022 to 2030 with the aim of achieving universal coverage on the road to malaria elimination for all interventions, prevention and treatment.
Health Deputy Minister Halima Daudi said the strategy would be key to addressing malaria-associated problems.
This is the second strategy since the country embarked on a cause to eliminate malaria.
“Implementation of the most recent one started in 2017 and ended in 2022. The aim was to reduce the incidence of malaria from 386 per 1,000 population in 2015 to 193 per 1,000 population by 2022 and to reduce malaria deaths from 23 per 100,000 population in 2015 to 12 per 100,000 by 2022.
“Through implementation of these interventions, Malawi has, so far, registered key achievements worth noting; for instance, the reduction in malaria prevalence by 56 percent from 24 percent in 2017 to 10.5 people in 2021,” Daudi said.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Representative Neema Kimambo said there is a need to increase the amount of funds allocated to malaria interventions through primary healthcare approaches so that malaria services are accessed by the most vulnerable populations wherever they are.
She said the organisation will ensure that there is full implementation of the strategy to achieve its intended purpose.
“In 2021, endemic countries and partners mobilised only 50 percent of the estimated $7.3 billion required globally to stay on track to defeat malaria.
“[We are saying this because] the Malawi Malaria Strategic Plan 2017-2022 had run on a funding gap of 50 percent. We, therefore, call upon the government and all funding partners to keep malaria high on their agendas when allocating resources to health,” Kimambo said.
