By Tope Musowo
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Mark Green yesterday announced that the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), led by USAID and implemented together with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will launch new country programs in Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Niger, and Sierra Leone, and expand its existing program in Burkina Faso.
According to a press release made available to Devcom Nigeria from the Office of Press Relations, With the addition of five new focus countries in West and Central Africa, PMI will have programs in 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria remains a significant public health problem. This is in addition to PMI's two bilateral programs and targeted support in the Greater Mekong Subregion in Asia, aimed at combating antimalarial drug resistance. PMI's country expansion will benefit almost 90 million additional people at risk of malaria.
Meanwhile,the U.S. Government would contribute to ensuring the availability of effective malaria prevention and control interventions to approximately 332 million people at risk across the west-to-central African corridor from Senegal to Cameroon. While launching and expanding PMI, the U.S. Government is said to remai committed to partnering with existing PMI focus countries to accelerate progress in malaria control and continue the momentum towards elimination.
The release further stated that in conjunction with partner countries, under national malaria control program leadership, and in collaboration with malaria stakeholders, PMI have scaled up a comprehensive, integrated package of life-saving interventions in communities. This includes both prevention (insecticide-treated mosquito nets, intermittent preventive treatment of pregnant women, seasonal malaria chemoprevention, and indoor residual spraying) and treatment interventions (malaria diagnosis and treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapies).
PMI support builds overall country capacity and strengthens health systems while improving malaria prevention and treatment services. PMI support includes strengthening supply chain logistics, malaria case surveillance, and monitoring and evaluation of impact.
It was also stated that more than 480 million people at risk of malaria have benefitted from PMI programs. In Fiscal Year 2016, PMI reportedly protected over 16 million people by spraying homes, distributed more than 42 million long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, and provided 57 million treatments of life-saving drugs and 63 million rapid diagnostic tests.
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