Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID-19
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A 2-Day Participatory Webinar Discussion
In keeping with a longstanding academic tradition, Harvard University hosted a series of public webinars to present findings from the year-long "Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID–19" global engagement in September 2021.
Multidisciplinary perspectives on ways to overcome the recent plateau in malaria progress and enable the most effective and innovative response to control and eliminate malaria worldwide were offered by diverse stakeholders in a neutral and inclusive virtual learning environment. Pre-prints of the "Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID–19" manuscripts are available here.
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Key Messages
Why now?
- Malaria elimination is possible – 10 countries have been certified “malaria-free” in the past five years, including China which eliminated from 30 million cases to zero cases
- Africa suffers 90% of the malaria burden and progress has stalled. Today, there are 220 million cases of malaria and 435,000 deaths worldwide – this is the same level of human suffering as was the case in 2015
- COVID-19 also brought about the fastest vaccine and diagnostics in history, proving our ability to quickly bring new/powerfully effective treatments to bear on public health challenges – and this is exactly what’s needed to end malaria
- Lessons from COVID-19 will help us rethink malaria—our assumptions, our approaches, etc.—and decide on the best solution for the situation
- The COVID-19 has laid bare the limitations and inequities of our global health systems; in particular, challenge related to governance, service delivery integration, and workforce
- The first step is to spark change on paper, the second step is to spark action in the community
What needs to change?
- Perception of the problem
--Malaria needs to be viewed as a societal problem of development, not as a medical problem alone - Leadership of the problem
--Malaria eradication needs to be led by endemic countries in partnership with multiple stakeholders within each country - Investing in the health workforce
--Empower through readiness, training, and education of health workers at all levels, including paying community health workers - Visibility and use of reliable and real-time data, knowledge, and information
--Malaria data needs to be valued and visible and used by the public and policy makers, as has happened with COVID-19 for decision-making - Accelerating innovation
--Globally, we need to give greater attention to innovation and problem-solving for malaria elimination and support endemic countries in entrepreneurship, R&D and manufacturing - Strengthening Health Systems
--Health for all means solving malaria as a pillar of universal health coverage
Questions?
Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID-19
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