WWARN supports World Malaria Day

Traditionally an opportunity to reflect on progress and challenges, this year’s World Malaria Day theme is Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria. The recent report of artemisinin resistance on the Thai-Myanmar border is a timely reminder that significant gains – like a 30% reduction in deaths over the last decade in Africa – are fragile. A newly-published paper "Malaria resurgence: a systematic review and assessment of its causes" found that the vast majority of resurgences were due, at least in part, to the weakening of malaria control programmes. In an accompanying commentary, WHO GMP Director Dr Rob Newman notes that "the greatest threats to current malaria control efforts are not biological, but financial."WHO’s new initiative "T3: Test. Treat. Track" urges malaria-endemic countries and donors to move towards universal access to diagnostic testing and antimalarial treatment, and to build robust malaria surveillance systems. WHO has published technical guidance for all three pillars of T3: Test, Treat, Track – releasing the final two documents of the package, Disease Surveillance for Malaria Control, and Disease Surveillance for Malaria Elimination, today.To help to increase awareness of World Malaria Day and all that it stands for, Mediaplanet have released an 8-page specialist report within The Independent newspaper, to showcase what the world is doing to fight this condition.Read the Roll Back Malaria article "Asia steps up anti-malaria fight on World Malaria Day". Global action to combat malaria is estimated to have saved 1.1 million lives in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade, it reports.Watch the World Malaria Day video message from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.