Lagos, Nigeria - Beninese Health Minister Dorothee Kinde-Gazard on Monday in Cotonou called for a regional integrated approach for the effective control and elimination of malaria in the ECOWAS region. Opening a three-day technical consultation meeting organised by the ECOWAS Commission, the minister commended the Commission for driving the initiative to strengthen vector control component of an integrated malaria elimination strategy in the region. According to a statement from the ECOWAS Commission, Prof. Kinde-Gazard said malaria was a major cause of hospitalisation and mortality in Benin, adding that the mosquito-borne disease constitutes a heavy burden on public health services already hampered by insufficient public funding.

The situation is similar in most countries in Africa, where official statistics show that a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds, with the disease accounting for 86 percent or 212 million of the global 247 million malaria cases worldwide.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) figures also show that 12 of the 30 highly endemic malaria countries are in West Africa, where the disease is the principal cause of morbidity and mortality among children and pregnant women

Prof. Kinde-Gazard therefore called for a combination and coordination of various interventions for the prevention, control and eventual elimination of malaria in the ECOWAS region, within the ECOWAS target year of 2015.

In his speech, Director of Humanitarian and Social Affairs Daniel Eklu, who represented ECOWAS Commission President James Victor Gbeho, said the ECOWAS-driven integrated malaria control initiative incorporating the strengthening of the vector control component is in line with the objectives of the 2000 Abuja Declaration by African leaders and the Millennium Development Goals for malaria elimination.

For this reason, he said the ECOWAS Commission had set up a Task Force within the President’s office for the elimination of malaria in the region.

Dr. Eklu also recalled the tripartite partnership agreement between the Commission, Cuba and Venezuela. Under the agreement, Cuba is providing technical assistance and technology transfer for local production of biolarvicides, while Venezuela is providing financial support
for the construction of three biolarvicide plants in River State, Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.

According to him, the ECOWAS initiative seeks to complement various national anti-malaria interventions and to strengthen the vector control component for an integrated malaria elimination strategy.

Addressing the meeting earlier, Cuban Ambassador to Benin Republic Oscar Coet Blackstoks reiterated the commitment of his government to providing the necessary capacity in support of the ECOWAS initiative.

He highlighted the importance of a regional approach, noting that malaria and its vector, mosquito, do not respect national boundaries.

Dr. Mariane Ngoulla, Health Adviser to the ECOWAS Commission, said the increasing use of biolarvicides for malaria vector control in the region calls for an appropriate framework to guaranty maximum impact of this intervention.

The chair of technical consultation meeting, Dr. Chioma Amajoh, who is the Director of Integrated Vector Management in Nigeria’s Ministry of Health, urged participants to come out with strong recommendations that will feed into the extra-ordinary meeting on Malaria Elimination by West African Health Ministers taking place in Dakar, Senegal 4-5 December 2011.

The Cotonou meeting is being conducted in plenary and working group sessions, with participants from countries with larviciding experience in the ECOWAS region (Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, The Gambia) and other African countries including Kenya, making presentations on various malaria control interventions.

The participants include Malaria Control Programme managers, Monitoring and Evaluation, Information, Education and Communication (IEC) as well as Behaviour Change Communication experts, and Medical Entomologists.

Other participants are representatives of the African Network on Vector Resistance to Insecticide (ANVR), Research Institutes, ECOWAS, WHO, West African Health Organisation (WAHO), Roll-Back-Malaria (RBM), biolarvicide manufacturing group, Labiofam, the Media and Civil Society organizations, including rural farmers, traders and the West African Women’s Association (WAWA).

Pana 28/11/2011