Malaria | Delegates From Asia-Pacific Countries Meet in Australia To Discuss Malaria Eradication

February 9, 2009

Delegates from eight countries in the Asia-Pacific region met Monday in Brisbane, Australia, for the inaugural meeting of the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network, which aims to eradicate malaria in the region by 2050, the AAP/The Age reports. According to the AAP/The Age, 10 countries -- Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, North Korea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu -- are involved in the network. Richard Feachem, head of the network and director of the Global Health Group at the University of California-San Francisco, said the focus of the three-day meeting was to help the 10 countries "share information, learn from each other, advocate collectively, and to do things better together than they can individually." He added that Australia "will play a special role helping to cover the costs" of malaria control efforts in the region and "will continue to play an important scientific role" (Harper, AAP/The Age, 2/9). Bob McMullan, parliamentary secretary of the Australian Agency for International Development Assistance, added, "The idea of the network is to get not just the scientists but the practical people who are or have run malaria elimination programs around the region together so that we can make sure that the dollars we are spending on malaria elimination are most effective." According to the Brisbane Times, the 10 countries involved in the network face various challenges in combating malaria because of differences in country size, conflicts or political instability. Feachem noted that China has "made a lot of progress already [in malaria control] but finishing the job is just a big-scale enterprise," while the Solomon Islands have the "challenge of starting from a quite high level of malaria, and it's a poor country with a weak health system and scattered populations on small islands." Feachem said that the region will need to increase indoor insecticide spraying and distribution of insecticide-treated nets to combat malaria. In addition, the region will need to "gea[r] up [its] ability to find the cases, diagnose them and treat them with the right drugs," Feachem said (Barrett, Brisbane Times, 2/10). McMullan said, "We've eliminated malaria from many countries in the region and in the world, so we can do it. It's a question of effective application of resources, that's what this network's about." McMullan noted that malaria has affected tourism in the region, adding that it will be "very hard to encourage mass tourism until malaria is brought under control." He said that although malaria eradication efforts are "fundamentally about the health of people," malaria eradication also is "central to economic development in the region" (AAP/The Age, 2/9). According to the Times, the conference received support from the World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Brisbane Times, 2/10). Delegates from all of the 10 countries except Bhutan and North Korea attended the meeting, the AAP/The Age reports (Harper, AAP/The Age, 2/9).