Malaria Consortium joins APMEN

Malaria Consortium is pleased to announce its membership of the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN).

Established in 2009, the network comprises 14 Asia Pacific country partners with the common goal of malaria elimination in the region, as well as regional partners from the academic, development, non-governmental and private sectors and global agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO). The network’s members work together to address the unique challenges of malaria elimination in the region providing leadership, advocacy support, capacity building, knowledge exchange, as well as building an evidence base.

"The elimination of malaria and containment of resistance in Asia – both drug resistance and insecticide resistance – are key priorities for Malaria Consortium and we are delighted to join the APMEN network,” said Malaria Consortium's Asia Programme Director, Henry Braun. “We look forward to working with partners to strengthen malaria elimination activities in the region."

Malaria Consortium has been working in Southeast Asia since 2003 and currently provides support to national malaria control programmes in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) to strengthen the region’s capacity to scale up malaria elimination activities. This includes working with ministries of health and other key partners on plans to move toward the pre-elimination and elimination stages of malaria control as appropriate.

Currently working in Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, implementing containment strategies as part of the newly created WHO Drug Resistance Containment Technical Expert Group, Malaria Consortium is also a partner in the Regional Artemisinin Resistance Initiative (RAI). A collaboration of multiple partners and ministries of health in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, the RAI, through Global Fund support, aims to contribute to the elimination of P. falciparum malaria in the region.

A key area of focus for the initiative is to reach migrant and marginalised populations living and working in border areas. Each country aims to deliver national advocacy and awareness campaigns. Activities will include the purchase of long-lasting insecticidal nets and case management in areas where there was evidence of delayed response to artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs).

APMEN’s 6th Annual Business and Technical Meeting is being held this year in Manila on March 11-13. Further information on APMEN can be found at www.apmen.org.

Find out more about Malaria Consortium’s work in Asia here.