Center Recognizes Malaria Champions of the Americas 2009 at Annual Malaria Day Forum

Leaders from Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico were honored as this year’s "Malaria Champions of the Americas" during the third annual Malaria Day in the Americas Forum on November 6, 2009 at the Pan American Health Organization in Washington, DC. 

Ecuador, who took the top achievement for an innovative collaboration between the National Service for Control of Arthropod-Transmitted Diseases (SNEM) in Ecuador's Ministry of Health and the Project for Malaria Control in Andean Border Areas (PAMAFRO) of the Andean Health Organization, will receive $2,500 from the Pan American Health and Education Foundation and a resident Global Health Service Fellow from the GW Center for Global Health to support in-country activities over a three-month period

“This is a great opportunity for our students and the project,” said Ashleigh Black, the Associate Director of the GW Center for Global Health. “Our students will be able to learn from experts in the field while helping to sustain the important gains PAMAFRO and SNEM have made.”

The project, which focuses on prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and control, reduced the burden of malaria by 66 percent in target areas of the Andean border region. One of the key elements of its success is attributed to the involvement of the community through the training of facilitators and community leaders. These efforts were carried out in tandem with local health education campaigns to educate people on malaria symptoms, available testing centers, and appropriate prevention techniques. In addition, the project provided vital supplies such as microscopes, training for lab technicians, insecticide-impregnated bed nets, and anti-malarial drugs to malaria endemic communities.

Also honored was Dr. Mario H. Rodriguez López, of Mexico's National Public Health Institute, for leading efforts to eliminate malaria from Mexico and Central America, and the Health Division of the Foundation for Education and Social Development (Fundación FES Social) in Colombia, which has spent more than 18 years carrying out research, providing technical assistance, monitoring, and developing public health interventions to fight malaria in endemic areas of the country.

PAHO Deputy Director Jon Andrus conferred recognition on all three winners. "I hope they will take these awards back to their countries and serve as role models for efforts to fight malaria, not only in their countries but throughout the region," he said.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, malaria control efforts have reduced morbidity due to the disease by 50 percent over the past decade. Yet more than 280 million people in the region still live in areas at risk of the disease. Experts at the event emphasized the importance of maintaining control efforts even as the impact—and the apparent urgency—of the disease is reduced.

Keith Carter, PAHO's top expert on malaria, said that the prospects were good for continued success noting that ministers of health from countries throughout the region pledged to reduce or eliminate malaria as a public health problem by 2015 at last month's PAHO Directing Council meeting. "This was a clarion call by PAHO Member States to combat malaria and other neglected diseases," he said.

The 2009 Malaria Day in the Americas Forum and the Malaria Champions of the America’s Award is organized by the George Washington University Center for Global Health in partnership with The Pan American Health Organization in and the Pan American Health and Education Foundation (PAHEF).   

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Learn more about the Finalists

Colombia

Ecuador

Mexico

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