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New boost to Ghana’s malaria control programme
Accra – Ghana Health Services has introduced a new-generation insecticide to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes, giving a major boost to the National Malaria Control Programme.
The new insecticide, SumiShield® 50WG, developed by Sumitomo Chemical Company with support from Innovative Vector Control Consortium, will be used for indoor residual spraying. The application of long-lasting insecticide to walls and ceilings of homes has been very effective in cutting down on malaria cases and deaths.
SumiShield® 50WG has a totally new mode of action, and contains the first new chemistry in 40 years to be recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for indoor residual spraying. The application of long-lasting insecticide in and around homes has been very effective in cutting down on malaria cases and deaths.
With support from Unitaid, new indoor residual spray formulas have been introduced into a number of countries’ malaria control programmes, replacing older insecticides to which mosquitoes have become resistant.
“Ghana’s malaria response received a boost today through the introduction of a new insecticide by Sumitomo Chemical,” Ghana Deputy Minister of Health Tina Mensah said at a launch event in Accra on Monday. “There is one challenge that threatens the gains made, which is mosquitoes building resistance to the indoor residual spraying insecticides.”
SumiShield® 50WG, which received its World Health Organization pre-qualification in October 2017, can be used in rotation with Syngenta’s Actellic® 300CS. The insecticides are strategically rotated in different regions so that mosquitoes cannot easily develop resistance to them, and they can be used longer to protect people from malaria. Introduced in 2016, Actellic® 300CS was the first of the new-generation insecticides to be successfully deployed in Ghana.
Indoor residual spraying is one of several tools supporting the National Malaria Control Programme’s goal of reducing malaria illness and death by 75 percent in Ghana between 2012 and 2020.
In 2017, implementers of spraying efforts in Ghana were able to significantly expand their coverage area, supported by the Unitaid-funded NgenIRS project. The two implementers are AGAMal, funded by the Global Fund, and PMI AIRS, now known as PMI VectorLink. Nearly, 400,000 homes were sprayed last year in the Upper-west, Northern and Upper-east regions of the country.
Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said: “We are delighted to see Ghana on the frontlines of tackling insecticide resistance as part of its efforts to end malaria. With Unitaid’s support, new and affordable insecticides are now on the market that will help protect families from this life-threatening disease.”
Nick Hamon, CEO of the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) which manages the NgenIRS project added: “Insecticide resistance poses a major threat to the national malaria control programmes across sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana. With our industry partners and funders, IVCC is developing a strong pipeline of new vector control interventions which, when used in rotation, will significantly reduce the likelihood of resistance becoming established.”
Le succès d’un projet pilote de prévention du paludisme d’Unitaid éclaire et inspire des actions similaires
On this year’s World Malaria Day, Unitaid is pleased to see its work to stop early-childhood malaria in Africa’s Sahel region being carried on by governments and other organizations, offering the potential to one day protect all the region’s smallest children from the deadly disease.
From 2014 to 2017, Unitaid funded the ACCESS-SMC project, the world´s very first large-scale pilot to evaluate the effectiveness of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC)—a type of preventive drug treatment.
The results were very encouraging: More than six million children across the seven countries in the project area received prevention, fulfilling more than 25 percent of the region’s needs and averting an estimated 60,000 deaths. In 2016, 290,000 children died of malaria, according to the World Health Organization.
Following the end of the ACCESS-SMC project, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria expanded this important work to ensure that young children remained protected. With a 2.9 million EUR grant, the Global Fund partnership expanded the number of beneficiaries and districts to reach 1.2 million children in 2017 in 14 districts in Niger.
“This simple and cost-effective method is saving thousands of lives, particularly among children under five in some of the most severely affected parts of Africa,” Global Fund Executive Director Peter Sands said. “Getting rid of malaria requires partnership, funding and innovation.”
Other seasonal malaria chemoprevention programmes are being funded by the World Bank, PMI, Good Ventures and UNICEF.
In 2014, 57 health districts had implemented seasonal malaria chemotherapy, to some extent, in seven countries. The scale of SMC remained small until 2015, when Unitaid’s $US68 million ACCESS-SMC project was started, significantly expanding the scale in a number eligible countries. As of 2017, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo had begun SMC programs.
In 2016, 15 million children in 12 Sahel countries were protected through seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) programmes. However, about 13 million children who could have benefited from this intervention were not covered, mainly due to a lack of funding.
“The experience of the ACCESS-SMC project has shown us that high coverage of a large number of children is possible, and can have a significant impact on the malaria burden,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said. “SMC is inexpensive, safe and effective, and with areas in the Sahel having the highest incidence of malaria in the world, it is now an urgent priority to close the gap and reach all eligible children.”
Unitaid intensifie ses interventions encore plus incisives contre le paludisme
Unitaid is stepping up its work against malaria, seeking effective ways to kill mosquitoes that carry the disease, protecting the children and pregnant women most endangered by it, and funding better tests and drugs for lifesaving diagnosis and treatment.
Over the coming months, meanwhile, Unitaid and partners will announce a batch of innovative new projects to improve access to long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets, and to create several next-generation indoor insecticide sprays. The sprays will be effective against mosquitoes that have become resistant to long-used formulas.
“Constant innovation and relentless forward momentum are critical to overtake and defeat malaria,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said. “We need to sharpen our focus on this disease, which is curable and preventable, but which is killing almost half a million people every year.”
Malaria is an urgent public health priority. In 2016, there were 216 million malaria cases and 445,000 deaths, marking a return to 2012 levels, World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show. A global drive is under way to galvanise action against the disease and raise the billions needed for research, prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Global targets call for a 40% reduction in malaria cases and deaths by 2020 and a 90 percent reduction by 2030.
Recently completed Unitaid-funded projects have made notable contributions against malaria. The Improving Severe Malaria Outcomes project, implemented by Medicines for Malaria Venture, amplified the use and decreased the price of injectable artesunate, a cutting-edge, lifesaving treatment for severe malaria. The project is expected to be saving 66,000 children’s lives annually by 2021. In 2016, about 290,000 children under five died of malaria.
Another success was the ACCESS-SMC project to fight rainy-season malaria among small children in Africa´s rugged, malaria-prone Sahel region. The $US 68 million project averted an estimated 10 million malaria cases and 60,000 deaths, and proved that seasonal malaria chemoprevention, a drug treatment, could be successfully carried out on a large scale in the Sahel. The encouraging results of ACCESS-SMC have prompted governments and other organisations to start their own seasonal malaria chemoprevention programmes.
Unitaid’s portfolio includes US$ 225 million grants for malaria. Active grants include:
- US$ 65 million to develop new home insecticide sprays to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes
- US$ 3.4 million to strengthen the global supply chain for several key malaria medicines
- US$ 9.4 million to support rapid diagnostic testing for malaria
- US$ 9.6 million to contribute to the WHO’s piloting of the world’s first malaria vaccine
- US$ 51 million to prevent malaria in pregnant women
- US$ 19 million to support the use of rectal artesunate as an emergency measure for children with severe malaria.
Check Out:
- Scaling up malaria prevention in Africa’s Sahel region
- Unitaid & Malaria Factsheet
- Discover Unitaid’s malaria projects
- Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention video
- New insecticides to prevent malaria video
- Improving severe malaria outcomes impact story
- Accelerating access to seasonal malaria chemoprevention impact story