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…

On 1 April, GFAN Africa facilitated a regional day of action to extend sincere gratitude  to the United States, the Biden-Harris Administration, and the U.S. Congress led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for the $3.5 billion emergency funding commitment they secured for the efforts of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in low- and middle-income countries.

These resources will support low and middle-income countries to rapidly expand their testing capacity and ensure health care workers are adequately protected with personal protective equipment (PPE). The investment will support countries to contain the virus and its variants, ensure those infected have access to care and treatment (including adequate oxygen supplies) and prepare for successful vaccine delivery. It will save many lives, reduce suffering and help economies to reopen safely.

GFAN Africa’s in country partners joined in sending this thank you letter to USAID missions in 20 African countries; USAID mission to the African Union; and USAID Africa Bureau. Our partners- Impact Santé Afrique- for outreach in Francophone Africa also translated the letter into French. The 20 countries activated in this ‘Thank You’ outreach are: South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Cameroon, Madagascar, Benin, DRC, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Uganda.

GFAN Africa jointly with Run4TB mobilized in-country partners for letter writing, a jam session, social media and print media activities to mark World TB Day 2021. A letter addressed to Ministers for Health asked the Ministers to engage communities in planning and implementing strong, integrated TB and COVID-19 mitigation and response measures; to review, update and implement TB policies by the end of 2022 to align with the latest WHO and internationally recognized guidelines; and to participate in the next step up for TB survey on TB policies. The letter further asked the Ministers to lead the implementation of the UN political declaration on TB by December 2022 to outline progress, next steps and support the UN Secretary General’s proposal to hold a follow up High-level meeting on TB in 2023.

The letter was sent to Ministers for Health in Eswatini, Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Malawi. In Nigeria, a goodwill message with excerpts from the Letter to the Minister for Health was presented at a press briefing organized by the Honorable Minister for Health to mark World TB Day.

Excerpts from the letter were published in newspapers in Ghana, Malawi, Eswatini and Zimbabwe by eight media houses.

Further, the letter was sent to the Commissioner and the Head of Division for Health at the Africa Union Commission urging their office to encourage countries to adopt the recommendations in the Step for TB and the deadly divide reports and to meet their UNHLM commitments and targets.

A one hour live jam session was part of the World TB Day activities. A live band sang songs on ending TB with interludes of discussions on the urgent need to end TB with viewers sending their comments in real time. During the session, Naomi Wanjiru a GFAN speaker urged that TB should not be forgotten amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is a link to the jam session.

On 12 November 2020, Positive Women Together in Action an organization in Eswatini held a roundtable discussion jointly organized with GFAN Africa on the impact of COVID-19 on young women and adolescent girls living with HIV. During the conversations, the young women and girls shared their experiences on accessing treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 33 participants from various support groups from different communities in the four regions of Eswatini spoke about the impact of COVID-19 on women and AGYW living with HIV.

On a positive note, the multi-month dispensary of ART medication was implemented. Participants felt this was a positive impact of COVID-19 because before the pandemic they used to visit the healthcare centres for their refill and the cost was catastrophically high for them.

The young women and girls appreciated the food parcels and COVID-19 grant support being provided by the Government through the National disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and other organizations while others received financial support, which has never happened before the pandemic.

Discussing the negative impact of COVID-19, participants noted that there was an increase in the number of cases of gender-based violence during the lockdown period. “Partners spent their days together and started realizing each other’s shortfalls and this led to violence within homes” noted Thabisile Mavimbela. Stress, trauma, depression and general mental health challenges led to increased cases of gender-based violence.

‘’I have seen that our health sector has neglected other health conditions. Health workers deliver ART medication to our homes but why don’t they bring medication for other conditions so that they deliver a comprehensive service?’’ asked Cebsile Shabangu during the conversation.

The Government of Eswatini must sustain focus on all life threatening diseases amid COVID-19.