PMI, President's Malaria Initiative, Fighting Malaria and Saving Lives

This year the ASTMH conference drew over 4,600 attendees representing over 100 different countries—the most in meeting history.  The United States is committed through PMI to continue to support country-led work that lifts the burden malaria places on their communities.

Operational research is critically important to the success of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). PMI operates in 27 countries across sub-Saharan Africa and the Greater Mekong Subregion and often during the course of program implementation, unforeseen obstacles and new questions emerge.

In addition to supporting distribution of bed nets via massive campaigns every 3 or 4 years, PMI supports implementation of "durability monitoring," which examines how people use the nets, how they care for them, and how long they last. In Zanzibar, for example, the VectorWorks project, in collaboration with the Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Program, trained durability monitoring teams and collected 12-month data on nets in 300 households that received nets in 2016.

In Kenya, teams fight malaria-carrying mosquitoes. To reduce the mosquito population, Migori County has deployed spray operators — people who travel to homes in villages across the county and spray every room with a human-safe, long-lasting residual insecticide proven to kill mosquitoes.

This year, malaria will kill more than 400,000 people around the world. The vast majority will be kids in sub-Saharan Africa. Video vignettes show how Zambians are fighting the disease with help from the American people.

In Tanzania, the public and private sectors are incorporating mobile technology to streamline school-based distribution of ITNs, decrease staff burden, and ensure timely documentation and accountability. 

ITNs are one of the most effective tools to prevent malaria. However, once ITNs are in use in households, they can suffer wear and tear, shortening their lifespan. 

Innovations are critical to help the international development community achieve goals in the fight against malaria, HIV and other global health challenges. But inventing new products is not enough.

President Obama’s call to arms to end malaria worldwide as announced during his recent State of the Union address and the Administration’s request to increase resources for malaria control, underscore the remarkable progress made in the fight against the disease and a firm, emphatic commitment to end this public health scourge.

The President’s recently-submitted budget requests an additional $200 million for the President’s Malaria Initiative. This brings the total funding the White House has requested for this initiative to $874 million next fiscal year. 

Recognizing that many children are just one mosquito bite away from death, in a speech before the United Nations, President Obama called on the world to tackle this “moral outrage.

In the fight against malaria, Senegal has been a leader in West Africa in testing new strategies and implementing innovative solutions that has resulted in a mark decrease in malaria burden.

While malaria is rare in the United States, with about 1,500 cases a year mostly among travelers who visit or return to the U.S., it is an all-too-common source of pain and misery in too many places.

In President Obama’s final State of the Union address, he defined American leadership as “rallying the world behind causes that are right.” The global health goals of ending malaria and HIV/AIDS are no longer deemed too ambitious or too complex. And that’s because we’ve done it before. 

Peace Corps Volunteer blogs about her life-changing experiences working to fight against the spread of malaria.

Ten years ago, President George W. Bush launched the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) to help combat the disease in 15 high-burden African countries. Since then, PMI has expanded exponentially in scope and impact, reaching hundreds of millions with long-lasting insecticide treated nets, antimalarial treatments, rapid diagnostic tests, indoor residual spraying, and preventive treatments for pregnant women.

Malaria has plagued mankind for millennia. But with the investments of PMI and others, we are getting closer to a world without malaria.

The VectorWorks website introduces the project and serves as a clearing house where visitors can access useful information, such as research updates, checklists, distribution guides, and instructive videos.

Steph Curry, a malaria champion who also happens to be a basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, inspires legions around the world with his basketball skills, including those sports fans at the White House.

The U.S. has been a loyal and effective partner to malaria endemic countries around the world for over a decade, and a principal player in the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership -- the global coordinating mechanism for the response to malaria -- since 1998.