East African malaria community meets in Rwanda
17 October 2014
ACT Consortium members participated in the recent Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Eastern Africa Sub-Regional Network (EARN) Annual Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda.
The meeting, held 15 to 19 September, drew representatives from ministries of health and malaria control programmes, civil service organisations, research institutions, and public health advocates working in the 13 member countries.
Each country reported progress on key malaria control measures, and World Health Organization experts provided technical updates.
Topics of discussion included data driven malaria decision making, and recommendations for future country-level action plans and funding applications. The Rwanda Ministry of Health held a special session on the host country’s push toward malaria elimination.
Private sector research draws strong interest
ACT Consortium members Dr Anthony Mbonye and Dr Heidi Hopkins presented a summary of research results from East African studies.
“We were very pleased with the level of interest shown in ACT Consortium results by policy-makers and decision-makers from the EARN countries,” Dr Hopkins said. “The audience expressed particular interest in issues related to the private health care sector, rapid diagnostic test (RDT) implementation and drug quality.”
The Consortium representatives fielded several questions about the drug shop study in Uganda, as well as evaluation of ACT subsidies, and RDT uptake and acceptance in various settings.
“We welcome follow-up discussion with meeting participants and look forward to further interactions with policy-makers and implementers that can make use of the Consortium’s experience and research findings,” said Dr Hopkins.
Photo: Heidi Hopkins
Further information
- Download the ACT Consortium East Africa brief and presentation for the RBM EARN meeting
- Visit the RBM EARN website
