Keeping artemisinin resistance high on the agenda

2014 Malaria Consortium Progress Symposium in Asia

Despite real progress towards malaria elimination in this part of Asia, the Greater Mekong Sub-region continues to face the worrying challenge presented by artemisinin resistance. Only by working together will we be able to meet this challenge. The key is to do it before it is too late.

This was a key message of Malaria Consortium’s first annual Progress Symposium in Asia, which took place on 25-26 March in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The two day symposium provided space for representatives from national malaria control programmes, research institutions and organisations implementing malaria and neglected tropical disease programmes to come together to share their learning and discuss key issues and, crucially, potential ways forward.

“This meeting has shown the great progress that has been made by the national malaria programmes in the Greater Mekong Sub-region at a time when it faces the huge challenge of artemisinin resistance,” said Malaria Consortium’s Technical Director, Dr. Sylvia Meek. “There still remains a lot of work to be done but by working together we can find ways to connect research findings, project implementation and national strategies for artemisinin resistance and malaria control and elimination. The key need is to do this in time.”

Over 80 people from across the six countries of the region attended the two day event that had seven thematic sessions. Presentations from Malaria Consortium were as follows:

Trends in malaria prevalence and net coverage : Cambodia 2004-2010 (Dr Arantxa Roca-Feltrer and Sarala Nicholas)

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Cambodia malaria surveillance system (Pengby Ngor)

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Developing a suitable algorithm for identifying asymptomatic malaria at border points - “the cross-border project” (Hannah Edwards)

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Addressing vector control challenges in our region (Dr Jeffrey Hii)

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Knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to dengue prevention in Cambodia, 2013-2014 (John Hustedt)

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Malaria in pregnancy in South East Asia: a neglected disease? (Dr Prudence Hamade and Mitra Feldman)

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Positive deviance: an innovative approach to improve malaria outcomes (Muhammad Shafique)

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Malaria Consortium will be publishing a summary report from the meeting.