Attachments
The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)
Malaria prevention and control is a major U.S. foreign assistance objective, and PMI’s strategy fully aligns with the U.S. Government’s vision of ending preventable child and maternal deaths and ending extreme poverty. Under the PMI Strategy for 2015–2020, the U.S. Government’s goal is to work with PMI-supported countries and partners to further reduce malaria deaths and substantially decrease malaria morbidity toward the long-term goal of elimination.
Country Context
Zambia boasts a relatively stable and efficient government and political system. Following the change of government in October 2011, the Zambian Government re-aligned and split health portfolio functions between the Ministry of Health (MOH) at the central and provincial level and the Ministry of Community Development Mother and Child Health (MCDMCH) at the district through community level. An important challenge for PMI continues to be the restructuring of tasks traditionally carried out by the MOH to the MCDMCH at district level.
Although there are signs of improvement, malaria continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Zambia. The entire Zambian population is at risk of malaria, and control of the disease remains one of the government’s highest priorities. In 2013, the National Health Management Information System reported nearly 4.9 million clinical and laboratoryconfirmed cases of malaria, an increase of 1.5 million from 2009. Malaria transmission in Zambia occurs throughout the year with the peak during the rainy season, between November and April. The disease remains endemic but with wide variation in prevalence of infection across districts. Plasmodium falciparum is the major source of infection.
Currently, Zambia’s national malaria control program is aiming to provide vector control to 100 percent of households and persons at risk in targeted areas by 2016. With support from PMI, the goal is to achieve and sustain universal insecticide-treated net (ITN) coverage in conjunction with a focused, data-driven approach to geographic targeting for indoor residual spraying (IRS). Other recent PMI-supported activities include: training of clinical care teams in supervising intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women (IPTp); procurement and distribution of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria case management and training in their use; and support of the country’s behavior change communication strategy.