November 28, 2021 (ARTA, Djibouti): As part of its activities to support and strengthen health programmes, the IGAD Secretariat invited the heads of national programmes for malaria control, the focal point for malaria elimination, as well as experts from Roll Back Malaria organization, the ALMA group and WHO for a two-day regional consultation meeting, in the city of Arta.
This regional meeting dedicated to the fight against malaria, was inaugurated by Dr Hamdan Moustapha, representative of Sudan, IGAD Chair. He was followed by Ms Fathia Aboubaker Alwan, Director of Health and the social development of IGAD and the Secretary General of the Djiboutian Ministry of Health, Dr Salah Banoita Tourab, who also addressed the audience.
The consultation between countries will be an opportunity to present the state of pre-elimination and elimination of malaria in the IGAD countries.A presentation relating to the priority areas of cooperation of the tripartite memorandum of understanding signed between RBM, IGAD and the ALMA group will also be conducted.
Finally, IGAD’s technical partners should also present their technical support for the operationalisation of the memoranda of understanding signed in accordance with the country’s priority areas.
At the end of this regional consultation:
- coordination and collaboration between the regional malaria control consortium and national malaria control programmes will be established and strengthened;
- The current state of implementation of actions for the elimination of malaria in each member state of IGAD will be presented;
- priority axes for the elimination of malaria in the countries will be identified;
- a realistic tripartite work plan will be established, and with a milestone of follow-up meetings, in accordance with the signed memorandum of understanding.
