World Malaria Day 2014: WHO helps countries assess feasibility of eliminating malaria
24 April 2014 | GENEVA – On World Malaria Day (25 April), WHO is launching a manual to help countries to assess the technical, operational and financial feasibility of moving towards malaria elimination…The WHO manual will help countries assess what resources they need to reduce malaria transmission to very low levels, i.e. the point at which focused elimination programmes can start in earnest. It will also help them consider appropriate timelines and provide them with essential knowledge for long-term strategic planning for malaria programmes. “This long-term view on malaria is critical: it is vital to plan for the period after elimination,” says Dr John Reeder, Director of WHO’s Global Malaria Programme. “If interventions are eased or abandoned, malaria transmission can re-establish relatively quickly in areas that are prone to the disease, leading to a resurgence in infections and deaths.”
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2014/world-malaria-day/en/

WHO Manual: From malaria control to malaria elimination: a manual for elimination scenario planning
April 2014 68 pages
ISBN: 978 92 4 150702 8
Overview
Since 2000, there has been a 42% reduction in malaria mortality rates globally, and a 49% decline in the WHO African Region. This progress has led many malaria-endemic countries, even those with historically high burdens of malaria, to explore the possibility of accelerating towards elimination.
The elimination scenario planning (ESP) manual provides malaria-endemic countries with a comprehensive framework to assess different scenarios for moving towards this goal, depending on programme coverage and funding availability. It also helps countries set realistic timelines and provides essential knowledge for strategic planning in the long term.
The manual was produced in collaboration with colleagues from the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Imperial College United Kingdom, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Southampton and the Global Health Group at the University of California.
Related tools
The ESP manual can be used in conjunction with malaria transmission modelling software to better understand what levels of intervention coverage might be needed to make elimination possible. Malaria Tools, available from Imperial College London, is a malaria intervention model which has been tested as a means to carry out calculations suggested in the manual…
Malaria Tools

Global Fund: Partners Press for Accelerated Progress against Malaria
24 April 2014
Excerpt
GENEVA – Partners in global health are working together to accelerate progress toward a world free of malaria, with ambitious planning and optimized use of all funding, in order to increase impact and reach more people affected by the disease.
In its message for World Malaria Day, which is 25 April, Roll Back Malaria cited the great progress that has been made against the disease, reducing death rates and shrinking the malaria map. But it also called on the world to “strengthen the potential of individuals, communities and countries to achieve our ultimate goal – a world free from malaria.”…

NIH World Malaria Day statement
B.F. (Lee) Hall, M.D., Ph.D., and Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Excerpt
On World Malaria Day, it is encouraging to note that enhanced global efforts to control and eliminate malaria have saved an estimated 3.3 million lives since 2000.
However, the mosquito-borne disease continues to sicken and kill far too many people each year, most of them children. In 2012, roughly 207 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide resulting in 627,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2013, 97 countries had ongoing malaria transmission, placing 3.4 billion people at risk for the disease. And in a globally connected world, even people living in the United States can be at risk. In 2011, nearly 2,000 people in this country were diagnosed with malaria — the highest number since 1971. Virtually all of those cases occurred in U.S. residents or citizens who had travelled abroad.
The WHO World Malaria Day theme is “Invest in the Future. Defeat Malaria.” The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), affirms its continued commitment to supporting and applying innovative research approaches to find new treatments and tools for addressing this infectious disease. For example, through the establishment of the International Centers of Excellence for Malaria Research in 2010, we have worked to strengthen research capacity in the countries most affected by malaria. The 10 research centers, which operate 50 sites in 20 countries, have established dynamic programs to understand the epidemiology of malaria as it changes over time due to the implementation of malaria control and elimination programs. The research centers have also created capacity for clinical trials of novel antimalarial interventions…
Full statement: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2014/niaid-25.htm

PATH marks World Malaria Day 2014
Announcement | April 17, 2014
Events in Seattle and Berkeley, California, highlight progress and commitment toward eliminating malaria.