The WHO Region for the Western Pacific joins Member States and development partners in commemorating World Malaria Day on 25 April. The theme this year is: Invest in the future: Defeat malaria.
The message is now more important than ever. While investments to defeat malaria have yielded considerable results, the disease still kills more than a half a million people a year globally.
Nearly 40% of the 1.8 billion people in the Western Pacific Region are at risk of contracting malaria — including more than 40 million people at high risk.
The good news is we know what needs to be done.
Simply put, we need to strengthen health systems, especially the surveillance capacity to produce reliable data to guide future action. Stronger systems will also help ensure that health workers are properly trained to provide quality services and medications.
Like so many priority areas in health, malaria must be addressed in the context of Universal Health Coverage.
We are on the right path. Working with development partners and Member States, we have made significant gains in recent years. Together we have significantly reduced the number of malaria cases and deaths in the Region and globally.
According to the 2014 World Malaria Report, in the Western Pacific Region, all malaria-endemic countries except one decreased confirmed cases by over 75% between 2000 and 2013. Over the same period, deaths from malaria fell by over 90%.
These truly remarkable achievements, however, have not made us complacent.
We are employing new, more efficient strategies in our renewed commitment to defeat the disease.
Together with key stakeholders, WHO has developed the Draft Global Technical Strategy for Malaria (2016 – 2030) — which provides technical guidance to accelerate progress towards a malaria-free world.
This comprehensive strategy will be considered for endorsement at the World Health Assembly in May.
Our efforts to combat multidrug-resistant malaria have also gathered strength. If left unchecked, these dangerous strains can reverse the progress of recent years.
In the Greater Mekong Subregion, we have been working in partnership with the WHO South-East Asia Region, Member States and other stakeholders.
Together, we have drafted the Greater Mekong Subregion Malaria Elimination Strategy 2015 – 2030, which operationalizes the global technical strategy. This initiative will be launched at a side event of the World Health Assembly next month.
The strategy is prime example of partnership and collaboration — with six countries and multiple development partners coming together to fight a common threat.
The strategy will speed up efforts to tackle drug resistance and eliminate malaria in Member States located in the Greater Mekong Subregion. A special focus is protecting vulnerable mobile and migrant populations, which is crucial in preventing the spread of drug-resistant malaria in our increasingly interconnected world.
Later this year at the East Asia Summit, heads of government will consider a high-level road map to achieve the target of an Asia-Pacific region free of malaria by 2030. WHO is providing technical assistance to the Asia Pacific Malaria Leaders Alliance in developing the road map.
These strategies and commitments are crucial – but without strategic investments we cannot do the work that must be done on the ground to defeat malaria.
In many ways, I see the theme of World Malaria Day — Invest in the future: Defeat malaria — as a collective challenge to WHO, governments, donors and other stakeholders.
It is worrying to see financial support for malaria programmes being slashed globally, including in the Pacific. Strategies require adequate and sustained funding to work.
Mekong countries are receiving more funding at the moment — which is encouraging — but this funding needs to be increased to achieve elimination.
Though we still face many challenges, we are gaining more ground on malaria than ever.
WHO and partners are increasingly coordinated and strategic. Governments realize that they each have a key role to play — and that a malaria crisis in one country can quickly affect another.
Collaboration across borders and with non-health sectors is stronger than ever. And dialogue between WHO, Member States and donors is being stepped up to find innovative ways to mobilize resources – both financial and human.
Together, WHO and partners are turning words into actions… and strategies into victories.
Join us as we continue working towards a malaria-free Western Pacific Region.
Thank you.