Distinguished Mr Groff, Vice President of the Asian Development Bank;
Mr Costello of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade;
Mr Pascoe Kase, Secretary of Health of Papua New Guinea;
Dr Belizario, Undersecretary of Health, and Mr Jeremias Paul,
Undersecretary of Finance of the Philippines;
Admiral Ziemer, Coordinator of the United States President’s Malaria Initiative;
Dr Fernando, Assistant Director of ASEAN;
Dr Nafsiah Mboi, Envoy of the Asia Pacific Malaria Leaders Alliance;
Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen:
Today, we are at a crossroads in the fight against malaria.
Despite cutting in half the number of malaria deaths globally since 2000, we now face threats that could send malaria spiralling out of control once again.
These threats – such as deteriorating multi-drug resistance in the Greater Mekong Subregion – often affect the most vulnerable and isolated communities. They will be increasingly costly to address — and ironically come at a time when funding has been reduced because of the drop in cases in many countries.
Heads of government in the Asia Pacific region understand the urgency of finishing the fight against malaria while we still have the upper hand.
They have tasked the Asia Pacific Malaria Leaders Alliance with mapping out the road to rid the region of the scourge of malaria by the year 2030.
The task is exciting but intimidating. The region as a whole has improved in recent years, and elimination is achievable, but threats like multi-drug resistance mean the task will become harder the longer we wait.
WHO is an enthusiastic partner in this process, ready with technical and strategic support to help countries make the roadmap a reality.
Indeed, effective partnerships are key to our efforts against malaria. Meetings such as this one underscore the need to have participation from all sectors to address this disease whose effects go far beyond the health sector.
Apart from health sector colleagues, we are joined by senior officials from ministries of foreign affairs and finance from across the region. Representatives from the Asian Development Bank, ASEAN, Australia, the United States, the Global Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other partners will also lend their expertise to this meeting.
On behalf of the WHO Western Pacific Region — and my counterpart from the WHO South-East Asian Region, Dr Poonam Singh — we appreciate your participation.
In May the WHO World Health Assembly endorsed the new Global technical strategy for malaria 2016 to 2030. Its aim is to reduce the global malaria burden by at least 90% by 2030.
The strategy aims to eliminate malaria in at least 35 additional countries by 2030. Many of those countries will be in the Asia Pacific region. The strategy provides us all with the necessary technical guidance.
Over the next two days, we will now draft a high-level roadmap to eliminate malaria for generations to come in Asia and the Pacific. We will focus on the role of heads of government in mobilizing resources to achieve and sustain national malaria elimination.
We must bring top-level decision-makers to the table. To do so, we must take care to craft recommendations that address high-level political and social issues.
It is important that we do not get lost in technical details — or create too many committees and working groups. Let’s focus on clear mandates with clear benchmarks.
We must recognize that malaria is more than a health issue. It affects the economy, trade, travel, tourism and other sectors.
To effectively address the disease, many areas of government must work together, encouraging regional cooperation on migration, foreign affairs, agriculture and other areas.
Only with synergy among many areas of government — plus input from all our partners — can the disease be beaten.
Countries experiencing strong economic growth have the means to invest in a healthy workforce and reduce the health-care burden. This investment — much of which will go to strengthening health systems — will provide broader health and development benefits.
Over the past decade, the region has made impressive progress on malaria — particularly as a result of support from the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and from other partners.
The Asia Pacific Malaria Leaders Alliance is playing a key role in bringing together all parties that have a hand in malaria control and elimination.
In particular, prime ministers Tony Abbott of Australia and Nguyen Tan Dung of Viet Nam have helped prioritize malaria and mobilize funds. My special thanks go to them.
I would also like to thank the Asian Development Bank, which established a regional trust fund for malaria and other communicable diseases.
As a result of the support from many partners, we have been able to roll out available tools to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria. These tools include insecticide-treated bed nets, surveillance, rapid diagnostic tests and artemisinin-based combination therapies.
Despite major advances, however, the region still faces a major malaria burden.
In 2012 alone, there were more than 28 million estimated malaria cases in Asia Pacific — killing thousands and resulting in untold millions in lost income.
Treatment costs, missed work and school and other factors have added to that burden.
At the same time, control and elimination efforts continue to face serious challenges in the region — including technical and programmatic issues, political and economic constraints, and environmental changes.
Like all infectious diseases, malaria does not respect national boundaries.
Multidrug-resistant strains have emerged in border areas of the Greater Mekong Subregion. Already, malaria has become almost untreatable in some stretches of the Mekong region.
This growing threat of resistance to frontline medicines — especially artemisinin-based combination therapies — threatens to erase the hard-fought gains of the past decade. And changes in immigration rules later this year will complicate matters further, as people are allowed to move more freely among ASEAN countries.
For this reason, and based on the new global technical strategy for malaria, WHO developed the Strategy for malaria elimination in the Greater Mekong Subregion for 2015 to 2030.
Even with this technical guidance, political leadership and financial support of heads of government will be essential to successfully tackle multi-drug resistance and eliminate malaria by 2030.
You have the full technical support of WHO behind you in your efforts to rid the region of malaria.
As you know, we have the tools to finish the job now. But if we wait, some of those tools may cease to be effective.
The time to act is now.
Thank you.