ACCESS-SMC to present at the Roll Back Malaria SBCC WG meeting

Roll Back Malaria Social and Behavior Change Communication Working Group’s (SBCC WG) 4th annual meeting will commence next month in Tanzania. From July 11-13, organizations will come together and share challenges, successes and lessons learned to build an evidence base for malaria social and behavior communication.

Since 2014, ACCESS-SMC has supported National Malaria Control Programs (NMCPs) in the Sahel to bring preventative malaria treatment to children under five years old during the rainy season. Making drugs available however does not automatically mean communities will accept them. Fortunately, there has been a broad acceptance of SMC across the Sahel. This, in large part, is because the project was able to understand and respond to socio-cultural drivers that would affect acceptance.

Representing Malaria Consortium, Harriet Kivumbi will present two presentations at the SBCC WG meeting this year:

• Exploring community response to SMC: what are the factors associated with social acceptability of SMC in different contexts
• Mitigating gender and cultural barriers for a successful seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaign. Lessons from the ACCESS-SMC project in Nigeria

Abdoulaye Diop, from Speak Up Africa, will also present “Community perspectives and drivers of SMC uptake.”

It is through these meetings that lessons are shared in order to develop, implement and evaluate effective social and behavior change communication activities that will ensure the proper administration of SMC treatment.