On 8 June 2021, GFAN Africa organized a webinar titled – The Global Fund at 20: An Africa Civil Society Dialogue on the sidelines of the HLM on HIV/AIDS. The webinar marked the launch of a series of activities by GFAN Africa to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Global Fund partnership.

In her remarks, Linda Mafu the Head of Political and Civil Society Advocacy at the Global Fund appreciated the role of civil society in reminding the world about the need for global solidarity for HIV treatment. This led to the creation of the Global Fund. She added that civil society fought for the right to life. She emphasized the 20 years celebration of the Global Fund are a celebration of life, political leadership and partnerships with civil society.

The webinar was held on the sidelines of the high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS and Florence Anam from GNP+ outlined the following civil society asks for the high-level;

1. Equitable and equal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services for key populations and those in situations of vulnerability
2. Elimination of the structural barriers to achieving zero new infections, zero deaths and zero discrimination

• Fully resourced, efficient and sustained HIV response, integrated into systems for health, development, social protection, humanitarian settings and pandemic responses

Hon Daniel Molokele the Member of Parliament for Whange constituency in Zimbabwe renewed the call for a fully funded Global Fund especially at this time when there is donor fatigue and as the seventh replenishment is coming up.” In line with SDG3, it will not be possible to achieve targets in Africa without a fully funded Global Fund hence the need for the partnership to be fully resourced,” he noted. He urged civil society to push for increased domestic resources for health.

“HIV, TB, and Malaria are diseases happening at community level and community engagement is the best approach to fight the three diseases,” noted Olivia Ngou the Executive Director of Impact Sante Afrique. She appreciated that the Global Fund has put civil society and communities at the forefront of its interventions including at the decision making level.

Dr Vuyiseka Dubala-Majola from the Africa Center for HIV and AIDS Management in South Africa revealed that she is one of the 38 million people whose lives have been saved by the Global Fund. She added that in Western Cape Province of South Africa, she was one of the first people to benefit from ARVs free, from the Global Fund in 2004. Noting that Africa has come a long way, she emphasized that there are many more lives to save hence there is need for sustained and rigorous advocacy efforts.

“To world leaders, your efforts and investments in health are bearing fruit and should be sustained,” said Joyce Ouma a GFAN Speaker. She added that the Global Fund has helped her stay alive.  She urged for efforts to protect the gains made so far towards defeating HIV, TB and malaria and asked that the world must urgently invest additional resources to defend progress against HIV, TB and malaria, fight COVID-19, and save lives.

The Global Fund has played a critical role in efforts towards ending TB, noted Carol Kachenga from CITAM Plus. She added that she is a beneficiary of the work of the Global Fund, as she expressed disappointment that people still die from TB, a disease that is preventable and treatable.  She decried the deadly divide between TB commitments and the reality as she called for urgent action and sustained focus on TB amid COVID-19.

On 21 April 2021, GFAN Africa facilitated a regional day of action to thank Germany for their additional contribution of EUR 140 million to the Global Fund. These resources will support the Global Fund’s efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in low- and middle-income countries and mitigate the impact on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programs, including through deploying diagnostic tests, protecting front- line health workers and strengthening health systems.

This contribution comes at a critical time when the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world, adversely affecting the most vulnerable communities, threatening progress against HIV, TB and malaria, and putting a strain on already overstretched health systems, including at community level. In June 2020, Germany contributed EUR 150 million and we are grateful for this earlier contribution.

This thank you letter was sent by GFAN Africa’s in-country partners to German Embassies in 13 African countries and to German missions to the African Union and the East African Community. Our partners- Impact Santé Afrique – for outreach in Francophone Africa also translated the letter into French. The 13 countries that joined in this ‘Thank You’ outreach are South Africa, Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Cameroon, Madagascar, Benin, Lesotho and Senegal.

At GFAN Africa, we applaud Germany for their commitment to global health, as we thank Germany based colleagues whose strategic advocacy contributed to this significant outcome.

On 21 April 2021, GFAN Africa and partners, including communities living with and affected by HIV, TB and malaria and civil society organizations organized a day of action to thank Netherlands for contributing to the ACT Accelerator and to the Global Fund. The letters of appreciation sent by civil society organizations in 14 countries in Africa to Netherlands embassies and consulates expressed sincere gratitude to the Netherlands for their contribution of €52 million to the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. These funds are critical to support the accelerated development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.

€12 million will be channeled through the Global Fund to strengthen the COVID-19 response while protecting gains made against HIV, TB, and malaria over the last two decades. The remaining €40 million will be invested in the purchase of vaccines through COVAX – the vaccines pillar of the ACT-Accelerator. This pledge follows a previous contribution of €85 million to the global response to COVID-19. Since the pandemic began, the Netherlands contributed €137 million. Read the full letter here.

Impact Santé Afrique, our partner in Francophone Africa translated the letter to French and civil society organizations sent the letters to Embassies of Netherlands in Francophone Africa. The 14 countries that joined in this ‘Thank You’ outreach are South Africa, Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Madagascar, Benin, Zambia, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Senegal.

The letter was shared widely on social media. You can view the twitter messages here and retweet

World Malaria Day falls on April 25, 2021. The theme for this year is: Zero Malaria – Draw the Line against Malaria. This is the right time to draw the line against malaria by taking action to end the disease at this time when COVID-19 has made the fight harder. On this day, let’s highlight and appreciate the efforts that have been made over the years to control malaria and celebrate the gains so far.

Since 2000, the world has made historic progress against malaria, saving millions of lives. According to the World Health Organization’s world malaria report 2020, 7.6 million malaria-related deaths have been averted since 2000. This is a huge success resulting from concerted efforts by Governments, donors, and multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund partnership, which provides 56% of all international financing for malaria, and has invested more than US$13.5 billion in malaria control programs since the year 2002.

In Ghana, data suggests that the proportion of deaths attributed to malaria per 100,000 population has decreased from 10.8/100,000 in 2012 to 1.1/100,000 in 2019.

Notwithstanding, half of the world still lives at risk of malaria. Ghana remains part of the top countries in the world which contributes to the global malaria burden.  Globally, 409,000 people died from the disease in 2019. An estimated two-thirds of these deaths are among children under the age of five. Every two minutes, a child dies from malaria. These statistics should make us restless, especially because malaria is a preventable and treatable disease.

As malaria continues to cause needless deaths, COVID-19 has complicated the fight to end malaria. A new report by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria shows that in 2020, COVID-19 massively disrupted health systems and health service delivery for malaria in low- and middle-income countries in Africa.  Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions related to the response caused disruptions to essential malaria services. Initial messaging that aimed to reduce coronavirus transmission advised the public to stay at home if they had a fever, potentially disrupting treatment for those who may have had malaria and needed treatment. The lockdowns slowed down malaria prevention programmes such as the distribution of mosquito nets. This disruption to malaria prevention and treatment is causing increase in deaths from the disease and potentially will lead to a surge in deaths in subsequent years. Children and pregnant women particularly remain at great risk.

The fight against malaria must remain a priority. It is time for rigorous efforts to protect everyone who is at risk of malaria and to guard the tremendous strides made in fighting the disease. This calls for high impact investments in education, prevention, diagnosis and treatment, including research and development and building stronger health systems.  To achieve this, there is need for stronger political leadership, more funding including domestic resource mobilization and increased innovation. Community engagement, robust partnerships with private sector, foundations, academia, Government, civil society, for joint planning, execution, transparency and accountability will play an important role in malaria elimination.

Continuing to invest in research & development, scaling up country-driven solutions as well as innovations such as real-time data and next-generation nets will help us stay ahead of the mosquito and its killer tactics. Social and gender norms that present barriers to accessing healthcare especially among poor and vulnerable women and girls who are often primary caregivers should be addressed.  These actions to beat malaria must strongly engage communities and the youth.

The commendable efforts to beat COVID-19 must not be at the expense of accelerating progress against malaria. Malaria investments can be leveraged to fight COVID-19 and emerging diseases by promoting and facilitating safe and timely treatment of fever and ensuring that health workers are adequately protected and equipped.

Critically, malaria programmes must be integrated with broader efforts to build stronger systems for health, which are anchored on established community health systems. Further, ending endemic diseases such as malaria will contribute to strengthening fragile health systems and beating pandemics like COVID-19 because ending malaria will reduce the burden on health systems and increase capacity to detect, prevent, and respond to pandemics.

 

Despite the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19, malaria elimination remains a viable goal that will contribute to achieving universal healthcare coverage so that everybody has access to efficient, effective and affordable healthcare wherever they are and whenever they need it.

Malaria elimination is possible. Zero malaria is within reach.

World Malaria Day falls on April 25, 2021. The theme for this year is: Zero Malaria – Draw the Line against Malaria. This is the right time to draw the line against malaria by taking action to end the disease at this time when COVID-19 has made the fight harder.

On this day, let’s highlight and appreciate the efforts that have been made over the years to control malaria and celebrate the gains so far.

Since 2000, the world has made historic progress against malaria, saving millions of lives. According to the World Health Organization’s world malaria report 2020, 7.6 million malaria-related deaths have been averted since 2000. This is a huge success resulting from concerted efforts by Governments, donors, and multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund partnership, which provides 56% of all international financing for malaria, and has invested more than US$13.5 billion in malaria control programs since the year 2002.

In Ghana, data suggests that the proportion of deaths attributed to malaria per 100,000 population has decreased from 10.8/100,000 in 2012 to 1.1/100,000 in 2019.

Notwithstanding, half of the world still lives at risk of malaria. Ghana remains part of the top countries in the world which contributes to the global malaria burden. Globally, 409,000 people died from the disease in 2019. An estimated two thirds of these deaths are among children under the age of five. Every two minutes, a child dies from malaria. These statistics should make us restless, especially because malaria is a preventable and treatable disease.

As malaria continues to cause needless deaths, COVID-19 has complicated the fight to end malaria. A new report by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria shows that in 2020, COVID-19 massively disrupted health systems and health service delivery for malaria in low- and middle-income countries in Africa. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions related to the response caused disruptions to essential malaria services. Initial messaging that aimed to reduce coronavirus transmission advised the public to stay at home if they had fever, potentially disrupting treatment for those who may have had malaria and needed treatment. The lock downs slowed down malaria prevention programmes such as the distribution of mosquito nets. This disruption to malaria prevention and treatment is causing increase in deaths from the disease and potentially will lead to a surge in deaths in subsequent years. Children and pregnant women particularly remain at great risk.

The fight against malaria must remain a priority. It is time for rigorous efforts to protect everyone who is at risk of malaria and to guard the tremendous strides made in fighting the disease. This calls for high impact investments in education, prevention, diagnosis and treatment, including research and development and building stronger health systems. To achieve this, there is need for stronger political leadership, more funding including domestic resource mobilization and increased innovation. Community engagement, robust partnerships with private sector, foundations, academia, Government, civil society, for joint planning, execution, transparency and accountability will play an important role in malaria elimination.

Continuing to invest in research & development, scaling up country-driven solutions as well as innovations such as real-time data and next generation nets will help us stay ahead of the mosquito and its killer tactics. Social and gender norms that present barriers to accessing healthcare especially among poor and vulnerable women and girls who are often primary caregivers should be addressed. These actions to beat malaria must strongly engage communities and the youth.

The commendable efforts to beat COVID-19 must not be at the expense of accelerating progress against malaria. Malaria investments can be leveraged to fight COVID-19 and emerging diseases by promoting and facilitating safe and timely treatment of fever and ensuring that health workers are adequately protected and equipped.

Critically, malaria programmes must be integrated with broader efforts to build stronger systems for health, which are anchored on established community health systems. Further, ending endemic diseases such as malaria will contribute to strengthening fragile health systems and beating pandemics like COVID-19 because ending malaria will reduce the burden on health systems and increase capacity to detect, prevent, and respond to pandemics.

Despite the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19, malaria elimination remains a viable goal that will contribute to achieving universal healthcare coverage so that everybody has access to efficient, effective and affordable healthcare wherever they are and whenever they need it.

Malaria elimination is possible. Zero malaria is within reach.

By Mrs. Cecilia Senoo,

Executive Director, Hope for Future Generations Ghana

Focal Person, Global Fund Advocates Africa (GFAN Africa)

Developing Country NGO Delegation to the Global Fund Board (DCNGO)

We mark World Malaria Day on April 25. This year’s theme was Zero Malaria—Draw the Line against Malaria.

This is the right time to take action to end the disease just when Covid-19 has made the fight harder.

On this day, we highlight and appreciate the efforts to control malaria and celebrate the gains so far.

Since 2000, the world has made historic progress against malaria, saving millions of lives. The World Health Organisation (WHO) World Malaria Report of 2020 shows that 7.6 million malaria-related deaths have been averted since 2000.

Malaria is endemic in more than 95 percent of Malawi and it remains one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality across all age groups.

The National Malaria Control Programme has scaled up prevention, treatment and care services also targeting pregnant women by distributing insecticide-treated nets and residual spray in some districts like in Balaka, Mangochi and Nkhata Bay.

Progress is promising. Between 2006 and 2015, the mortality rate for children aged under five declined to about 64 deaths per 1 000 live births.

This success results from concerted efforts by governments, donors, and multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund, which provides 56 percent of all international financing for malaria. The fund has invested more than $13.5 billion in malaria control programmes since the year 2002.

As malaria continues to cause needless deaths, Covid-19 has complicated the fight to end the disease. The pandemic and restrictions have disrupted essential malaria services.

Initial messaging to reduce coronavirus transmission advised the public to stay at home if they had fever, potentially disrupting treatment for those who may have had malaria. The lockdowns slowed down malaria prevention programmes such as the distribution of mosquito nets.

This disruption to malaria prevention and treatment is causing increase in deaths from the disease and potentially will lead to a surge in deaths in subsequent years. Children and pregnant women particularly remain at great risk.

The fight against malaria must remain a priority. It is time for rigorous efforts to protect everyone who is at risk of malaria and to guard the tremendous strides made in fighting the disease.

This calls for high-impact investments in education, prevention, diagnosis and treatment, including research and development and building stronger health systems. To achieve this, there is need for stronger political leadership, more funding and increased innovation.

Community engagement and robust partnerships with private sector, foundations, academia, government, civil society, for joint planning, execution and accountabilities will play an important role in malaria elimination.

Continuing to invest in research and scaling up country-driven innovations such as real-time data and next generation nets will help us stay ahead of the mosquitoes’ killer tactics.

Social and gender norms that present barriers to accessing healthcare, especially among poor and vulnerable women who are often primary caregivers, should be addressed. These actions to beat malaria must strongly engage communities and the youth.

The efforts to beat Covid-19 must not come at the expense of accelerating progress against malaria. Malaria investments can be leveraged to fight Covid-19 and emerging diseases by promoting and facilitating safe and timely treatment of fever and ensuring that health workers are adequately protected and equipped.

Critically, malaria programmes must be integrated with broader efforts to build stronger health systems for health, which are anchored on established community health systems.

Ending endemic diseases such as malaria will contribute to strengthening fragile health systems and beating pandemics because it will reduce the burden on health systems and increase capacity to detect, prevent and respond to pandemics.

Despite the unprecedented challenges presented by Covid-19, malaria elimination remains a viable goal that will contribute to achieving universal healthcare coverage so that everybody has access to efficient, effective and affordable healthcare wherever they are and whenever they need it.

Malaria elimination is possible. Zero malaria is within reach.

Itai Rusike Features Correspondent

Today, Zimbabwe joins the world in commemorating the World Malaria Day 2021. The theme for this year is Zero Malaria – Draw the Line against Malaria.

We draw the line against malaria by taking action to end the disease at this time when COVID-19 has made the fight to end malaria harder. On this day, we highlight and appreciate efforts that have been made over the years to control malaria and celebrate the gains made to date.Since 2000, the world has made historic progress against malaria saving millions of lives.

According to the World Health Organization’s world malaria report 2020, 7.6 million malaria-related deaths have been averted since 2000. This is a huge success resulting from concerted efforts by Governments, partners and multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund partnership, which provides 56 percent of all international financing for malaria, and has invested more than US$13.5 billion in malaria control programs since the year 2002.Half of the world still lives at risk of malaria. 409,000 people died from the disease in 2019. Anestimated two thirds of these deaths are among children under the age of five.

Every two minutes,a child dies from malaria. These statistics should make us restless, especially because malaria isa preventable and treatable disease.As malaria continued to fight back and cause needless deaths, COVID-19 struck, complicating the efforts to end malaria. The COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions related to the response caused disruptions to essential malaria services. Initial messaging that targeted to reduce coronavirus transmission advised the public to stay at home if they had fever, potentially disrupting treatment for those who may have had malaria and needed treatment.

The lock down also slowed down malaria prevention programmes such as the distribution of mosquito nets. This disruption to malariaprevention and treatment will increase deaths from the disease and potentially lead to a surge indeaths in subsequent years. Children and pregnant women particularly remain at great risk.The fight against malaria must remain a priority to protect the progress made to defeat the disease. This calls for high impact investments in education, prevention, diagnosis and treatment,including research and development.

Key to fighting malaria is building stronger health systems, which have been weakened further by the onset of COVID-19. To achieve this, there is need for stronger political leadership, more funding and increased innovation. Community engagement, robust partnerships with private sector, foundations, academia, Government, civil society, for mutual planning, execution and accountabilities. There is need for a cross cutting approach that unites human, animal and environmental health interventions to achieve desired public health outcomes. This is because some human diseases are shared with animals, other diseases such as malaria are related to the environment while other emerging diseases such as COVID-19 are associated with wildlife.

Continuing to invest in research and development and scaling up country-driven solutions as well asinnovations such as real-time data and next generation nets will help us stay ahead of the mosquito and its killer tactics. Social and gender norms that present barriers to access to healthcare especially among women from poor and vulnerable households who are often primary caregivers should be addressed. These actions to beat malaria must strongly engage communities and the youth including in aspects of advocacy through participatory approaches such as peer-to-peer initiatives. Communities must be at the heart of the malaria response.In the face of COVID-19, it is time for rigorous efforts to protect everyone who is at risk of malaria and to guard the tremendous strides made in fighting the disease.

There is a lot of focus to beat COVID-19 but this must not be at the expense of accelerating progress against malaria. Malaria investments can be leveraged to fight COVID-19 and emerging diseases by promoting and facilitating safe and timely treatment of fever and ensuring that health workers are adequately protected and equipped.Critically, malaria programmes must be integrated with broader efforts to build stronger systems for health, which are anchored on established community health systems.

Further, ending endemic diseases such as malaria will contribute to strengthening fragile health systems and beating pandemics like COVID-19 because ending malaria will reduce the burden on health systems and increase capacity to detect, prevent, and respond to pandemics.Despite the added challenges by COVID-19, malaria elimination remains a viable goal towards achieving universal healthcare coverage so that every Zimbabwean has access to efficient,effective and affordable healthcare wherever they are and whenever they need it without facing

financial difficulties.Malaria elimination is possible. Zero malaria is within reach.• Itai Rusike is the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) Executive Director.• The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) is a network of national membership based civil society and community based organisations who aim to collectively enhance community participation in health in Zimbabwe.

World Malaria Day will be celebrated on April 25. This years theme is ‘Zero malaria – draw the line against malaria’. This is the right time to draw the line against malaria by taking action to end the disease, especially now that Covid-19 has made the fight harder. On this day, we highlight and appreciate the efforts that have been made over the years to control malaria and celebrate the gains so far. According to the World Health Organization’s World Malaria Report 2020, 7.6 million malaria-related deaths have been averted since 2000. The Ministry of Health has shown commitment towards eliminating malaria.

In February this year, the Malaria Council was formed to mobilize local resources for malaria control and elimination in Kenya.  There has been intense work in vector control through the distribution of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying, larval source management, prevention of malaria in pregnancy; malaria diagnosis, and treatment; monitoring, evaluation, and research as well as work to encourage behavior change.

The Ministry of Health is implementing the Kenya Malaria Strategy 2019 – 2023 that aims to protect all Kenyans through access to malaria preventive interventions, to manage all suspected malaria cases and to establish systems for malaria elimination in targeted counties.

Covid-19 has complicated the fight to end malaria by causing disruptions to essential malaria services. Initial messaging that aimed to reduce coronavirus transmission advised the public to stay at home if they had fever, potentially disrupting treatment for those who may have had malaria and needed treatment. Read more…