The workshop of the national malaria programme managers of South-East Asia Region was successfully held from 23 to 25 August 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand. It was attended by the national programme managers and their representatives, experts, partners and all three levels of WHO. This is an annual event, which is held to review progress and coordinate malaria control and elimination activities in countries in the South-East Asia Region. This year, the platform was used to update the programme mangers on adoption and dissemination of updated WHO guidelines on malaria.
General Objective
Update the national malaria programme managers in the South-East Asia Region on consolidated WHO Guidelines on malaria and to seek feedback on effective dissemination mechanisms.
Specific Objectives
- Update the national malaria programme managers in South-East Asia Region on consolidated WHO Guidelines on malaria.
- Seek feedback on more effective mechanisms for improvement of dissemination.
- Review progress and identify gaps for malaria elimination and prevention of reestablishment in WHO South-East Asia Region.
Highlights of the meeting
National Programme Managers and their representatives, experts, partners and three levels of WHO attended the meeting. The presentations and discussions highlighted the following:
- Over the past few years, the Region has demonstrated largest decline in malaria burden among all WHO regions. It is the only Region to have achieved 2020 milestones of the Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030 (GTS) with most of countries reducing malaria cases and deaths by at least 40% by 2020.
- Following up on the “Ministerial Declaration on Accelerating and Sustaining Malaria Elimination in the South-East Asia Region” signed in November 2017, the ministers of health in South-East Asia Region issued a “Statement on Renewed Commitment for Malaria Elimination” during a virtual Regional event to commemorate the World Malaria Day 2022. The current workshop provided a platform to deliberate on activities agreed in the above statements.
- To make these commitments operational, dissemination of a clear and evidence-informed WHO global recommendations is needed to guide the managers of national malaria programmes as they develop national malaria strategic plans and country-level guidelines to combat the disease.
- The three-day activity included review of progress in countries presented by malaria programme managers. Some of the common issues presented and discussed were challenges for cross border collaboration including data sharing and need to accelerate subnational elimination.
- Last year, for the first time, WHO brought together all of the Organization’s current recommendations for malaria in one user-friendly online resource, the consolidated WHO Guidelines for malaria, through the MAGICapp platform. These global guidelines cannot have too much specificity and need to be developed to suit every possible context encountered in the Member Countries to suit their local settings. Presentations were made on these updated guidelines and the group work facilitated the discussion on adopting the guidelines and strategies for effective communication on technical and policy areas as well as dissemination.
- Presentation from Greater Mekong Subregion shared best practices adopted for managing drug resistance, data sharing, cross border activities and malaria elimination.
- The need and standard operating procedures for quality assurance of diagnosis and monitoring of therapeutic efficacy of antimalarials was presented and discussed.
Recommendations
Member states to consider the following:
- Build and strengthen capacities at national and local levels and develop structured action plans for review and adoption of WHO updated guidelines. National guidelines should be updated, and dissemination plans to be place for different sectors and levels.
- Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) microscopy, National Reference Laboratory (NRL), slide banks (if available) to be in place according to prescribed Standard Operating Procedures. Programmes need to plan for External QA and Proficiency Testing (PT), specially in very low transmission areas.
- For drug efficacy monitoring, Therapeutic Efficacy Study (TES) to be resumed, and Integrated Drug Efficacy Surveillance (iDES) implemented in areas with very low number of cases.
- Strengthen malaria surveillance tailored to level of endemicity and status of malaria elimination and targets. Large countries need to accelerate subnational elimination verification process.
- Strengthen surveillance and response along the international borders including action for acceleration towards elimination on the high-burden side and cross-border collaboration and develop formal as well as informal channels of communication and data sharing.
- Partner mapping with key roles to avoid duplication of efforts.
- Prompt and complete data sharing.
WHO to consider the following:
- Continue to technically support countries (including capacity building) to align national policies with the WHO guidelines for malaria and for adaptation, adoption and dissemination of guidelines in country context. More specific support to be provided on conditional recommendations which may need special consideration depending on the country context.
- Support for QA/QC microscopy as per request of countries including providing slide panels from RITM.
- Organize training for NCAMM facilitators and NRL laboratories in the Region.
- Provide technical support to countries for cross border collaboration and support for developing appropriate agreements and communication channels.
- Facilitate pooled procurement of antimalarials as per request of the countries to ensure uninterrupted supply.
- Facilitate sharing of best practices across countries and other regions.