WHO Approves a New Global Malaria Strategy for the Next Fifteen Years

During the World Health Assembly on May 20^th, WHO Member States agreed on a new global malaria strategy for 2016-2030. The new strategy aims to build on recent achievements concerning vector control, chemoprevention, diagnosis and treatment in order to sustain and accelerate progress towards malaria elimination. The strategy is built on three main pillars: i) ensuring universal access to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment; ii) accelerating efforts to elimination and attainment of malaria-free status; iii) transforming malaria surveillance into a core intervention. It emphasises the key role of innovation and research as well as the need for political commitment, sustainable financing and strong health systems.  For Dr. Pedro Alonso, WHO Director of the Global Malaria Programme and member of the International Global Health Partnership Board of ISGlobal, "This is a historical moment. It is the most important resolution approved in the last 50 years".

With the WHO technical strategy as the foundation, a complementary document has also been released: ‘Action and Investment to defeat malaria 2016-2020' (AIM). AIM was developed in parallel by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership and addresses how new stakeholders can be mobilized to implement and finance the global malaria strategy.

The immediate threats of insecticide and drug resistance as well as the quick rise in the malaria death toll in West Africa due to the last Ebola crisis, show that current malaria control strategies are not enough.  In this sense, the approved WHO strategy is fully in line with the Malaria Elimination Initiative launched by ISGlobal several years ago with the firm belief that the only long-term, sustainable solution is the complete elimination of the parasite in a given region.  In 2013, ISGlobal was designated a "WHO Collaborating Centre for Malaria Control, Elimination and Eradication".