Blog Posts

Two-year-old Tata Wagué lives in a village in the Kayes region of western Mali, not far from the Senegal River. During the summer months, seasonal monsoons drench villages in the area with heavy rain creating mosquito breeding sites, especially around the riverbed where Tata lives. Tata and other children who are under the age of five years old are among the most vulnerable to the potentially devastating impacts of malaria with children under five accounting for 67% of deaths from mala... Read More

To reach the unreached and end one of the world’s oldest, deadliest diseases, we need to tailor the malaria prevention toolbox to use the right tools in the right place at the right time.   One of those tools is supervised on-the-job training for health providers.   Malaria remains a fact of life for billions of people around the world and is a leading cause of illness and death across sub-Saharan Africa. Despite considerable progress, malaria s... Read More

2020 will always be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet diseases like malaria which are both preventable and treatable, continue to cause great suffering and hardship around the world. However, while we have made great progress in the fight against malaria, every year more than 400,000 lives are lost to the disease and every two minutes a child dies from malaria – we need to continue the fight. We approach this year’s World Malaria Day with a shared understan... Read More

Women are at the forefront in the fight against malaria. From community health workers to heads of state, they are working across the globe to save millions of lives each year. PMI Impact Malaria recently caught up with Wani K. Lahai from the Sierra Leone National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) to discuss malaria in her country and the role that women play in delivering malaria services. Sierra Leone’s entire population of about 7.6 million people is at risk of malaria. Young children... Read More

“Every morning I took my tô (traditional Malian okra-based dish) before going to the field and, in the evening, I watered my garden and harvested my crops – all without a malaria problem. Often, I even carried bags of rice and baskets of tomatoes without any assistance.” Djeneba Kone was able to tend to her fields all throughout her pregnancy, preventive malaria care helped to keep her healthy enough to do so. The 28-year-old resident of Soké, Mali, and mother... Read More

Both of Mary Mulenga’s children had a fever. With one child on her back and the other seated behind her, Mary rode her bicycle to the nearest health facility in Zambia’s Kalulushi district, where she and her children live. Health workers in the facility assessed that both children had malaria-like symptoms and quickly conducted rapid diagnostic tests. Within minutes, results were available: both children had malaria and were put on artemether-lumefantrine to treat their malaria in... Read More

2020. What a year. It’s a year that has required all of us to dramatically transform so many aspects of our lives, including how we work. Like me, I’m sure many of you are wondering what 2021 will bring. It’s so hard to anticipate, but whatever the year brings, I know PMI Impact Malaria is ready to deal with it head on. It has been an exciting few weeks watching deployment of the first COVID-19 vaccines, in what will quickly become the largest and fastest vaccination campa... Read More

As part of advancing global malaria service delivery, PMI Impact Malaria (IM) supports countries in their efforts to strengthen the quality of malaria services in health facilities and at the community level. IM’s quality assurance approach encourages continuous improvement of the competencies of health providers through a systematic and standardized series of country-driven interventions, including mentorship to improve workplace performance and provide ongoing professional development... Read More

In March, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, PMI Impact Malaria (IM)-supported countries had just detected their first cases of COVID-19. By May, IM’s mandate began to include supporting Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Ghana in their pandemic response efforts. Now, nine months into the pandemic, the three countries and IM have learned key lessons from responding to COVID-19, namely the importance of thinki... Read More

PMI Impact Malaria (IM) is the flagship global service delivery project of the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), providing global technical leadership to fight malaria and save lives. IM supports countries in their efforts to strengthen malaria diagnosis, treatment, and drug-based prevention in health facility and community settings through implementation and technical support, as well as operational research. In the project’s third year, IM operated in 18 countries a... Read More

This year’s World Malaria Report, recently released by the World Health Organization (WHO), conveys the remarkable gains that the global community has achieved in the fight against malaria over the last two decades. Worldwide deaths due to malaria fell by 60% from 2000 to 2019. However, the report underscores the trend of the last several years which shows that high burden countries are losing ground. In 2017, WHO warned about this stalled progress and then launched the “high... Read More

PMI Impact Malaria looks forward to participating in the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), from November 15-19. In a moment when it is particularly essential to maintain malaria gains under the many challenges imposed by COVID-19, this year’s meeting is an opportunity to share some of PMI Impact Malaria’s (IM) latest research. In the most unique ASTMH Annual Meeting ever, IM will convene a symposium collaboration, give two oral ... Read More

“No child in my community has had severe malaria in recent years,” explained Hadiza, a 39-year-old mother who lives in Niger, where malaria transmission spikes dramatically during the rainy season. Parents who have seen a child sick from severe malaria don’t ever forget it. High fever, convulsions, and respiratory distress are common. It’s a disease that progresses rapidly. Severe malaria is a major cause of death among young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In areas ... Read More

In March, within weeks of Ghana’s first confirmed COVID-19 cases, Community Health Officer (CHO) Gertrude Doku was alarmed by the lack of patients seeking malaria services at the Tinkong Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound. Having worked for five years at the compound, which serves about 5,000 residents, Gertrude knew that the local burden of malaria is typically high—especially for pregnant women and children under five years of age. Despite the fact tha... Read More

“A fantastic story of success and progress,” is how Dr. Pedro Alonso, Director of the WHO World Malaria Programme, described the history of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) earlier this week during a PSI-hosted webinar on new country learnings for getting the most from SMC. PMI Impact Malaria (IM) presented on integrating malnutrition screening into Niger’s SMC campaign, and presenters from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Malaria Consortium spoke about using digita... Read More

Maimouna Traoré lives in the Sikasso region of Mali and can easily remember when the rainy season was deeply dreaded. After all, it was only a few years ago. As she recalls, “In the past, many children in our area would die of severe malaria with seizures, but thanks to the SMC that is being done every year now, there are rarely cases of malaria in our families. A child who takes three doses of medication per month should not get malaria.” SMC, short for seasonal malaria c... Read More

Every two minutes, a child dies of malaria. In 2018, of the estimated 405,000 malaria deaths worldwide, more than 67% were children under the age of five. Fortunately, there are proven methods to prevent malaria among this group, and the last decade has seen considerable progress in reducing the incidence of malaria. However, health service disruptions and drug shortages due to COVID-19 threaten to undermine recent gains. One method for reducing childhood malaria is seasonal malaria chemopre... Read More

In its seven-month lifespan, COVID-19 has impacted people around the globe in widespread and unparalleled ways. As of July 23, there were 15.4 million confirmed cases and almost 632,000 confirmed deaths reported from 188 countries and regions (Johns Hopkins). The numbers are striking and the urgency to combat COVID-19 is acute. While the global health community has achieved steady gains in reducing the incidence of malaria over the last decade, nearly half the world’s population remain... Read More

Health providers are key influencers in the patient-provider interaction. They serve as gatekeepers for malaria prevention, testing, and treatment, and heavily influence the quality of data in health management information systems. Making strides in malaria control therefore requires a strong focus on provider behavior. But what drives provider behavior and how can we improve it? PMI Impact Malaria and Breakthrough ACTION collaborated to create A Blueprint for Applying Behavioral ... Read More

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the launch of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). Together with its partners, PMI has saved millions of lives and contributed to substantial gains in education, productivity, and economic development. The creation of PMI marked a turning point in the global fight against malaria. In 2005 when PMI was announced, malaria killed almost 1.2 million people worldwide. In contrast, according to the most recent World Malaria Report, there were an ... Read More

Advancing progress towards malaria elimination requires a strong focus on health provider behavior. What drives provider behavior and how can we influence it to improve malaria service delivery? To address this, PMI Impact Malaria and Breakthrough ACTION collaborated to create A Blueprint for Applying Behavioral Insights for Malaria Service Delivery: Methods and Frameworks for Improving Provider Behavior. Learn more from PMI Impact Malaria's Mary Warsh and Keith Esch ... Read More

This year, we’re approaching World Malaria Day with a vivid and shared understanding of the catastrophic impact that infectious diseases can have on our world. As we remain committed to defeating malaria—one of the world’s oldest and most devastating diseases—COVID-19 is a reminder that emerging infectious diseases pose a serious challenge in our work to end malaria. Recognizing the burden of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and the region’s fragile health infrastr... Read More

A scenic view of Lake Victoria welcomes you to the township of Sindo, in Kenya’s southwest corner. Colorful wooden fishing boats line the shore as groups gather to negotiate the sale of fish. Women clean dishes while keeping a watchful eye on their children playing in the shallow water. Other women balance buckets of fish on their head as they depart for the market. It’s 7 a.m. and the bay has been a flurry of activity for three hours already. The journey to this part of Kenya... Read More

A warm, energetic hum seems to follow Amichia Solange as she goes about her day providing guidance, listening to heartbeats, administering medication with clean water, transitioning from one patient to the next, and sharing goodbye hugs as women head out the door. At Mouyassue Rural Health Center in Côte d’Ivoire, Amichia is one half of the indispensable duo that provides medical care to women throughout all stages of pregnancy. Amichia and her colleague, the two midwives at the ... Read More

The miracle of birth and the making of mothers has long fascinated Jenifer Adjei. Now an accomplished midwife at the Oda District Hospital in Ghana, Jenifer helps expectant and new parents plan for and cope with the arrival of their babies. Through her work, Jenifer has become all too familiar with the adverse effects of malaria in Ghana—especially malaria in pregnancy (MIP). While Ghana has made substantial gains in driving down malaria, with malaria-attributable death declining from ... Read More

Kakamega, Kenya — Nineteen-year-old Jane* delivered a full-term baby in a health facility near her home without complications. When the new mother was discharged a day later, there was no hint of any problem. She was happy to go home and care for her newborn. However, six hours later, Jane spiked a fever. She experienced convulsions and confusion, and was refusing to breastfeed. Jane’s family rushed her back to the health facility, where a clinician mistakenly diagnosed her with... Read More

As a five-year malaria service delivery project of the U.S President’s Malaria Initiative, PMI Impact Malaria (IM) provides global technical leadership through implementation support, technical assistance, and operational research in health facility and community settings across Africa and Asia. For the second year of the project, IM continued activities to support the national malaria control programs (NMCPs) of 14 countries in their efforts to fight malaria and save lives through str... Read More

Drocas Dako knows how to multitask. During Mali’s seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) campaign, she’s out the door by 7 a.m. to distribute free pills that protect children from malaria. She goes from one household to the next, the whole time with her baby on her back. At one of the first homes, Drocas is welcomed with friendly greetings and chatter as she and the household’s grandmother, Assitar, collect the young children and sit down together in the shade of a nearby t... Read More

Children under five years of age are the most vulnerable group affected by malaria. In 2017, they accounted for about 60% of all malaria deaths worldwide. Fortunately, there are proven ways to prevent malaria in this population. One is seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC)—a campaign style public health intervention to prevent and treat malaria infection in young children living in the Sahel region of Africa. SMC involves giving an antimalarial medicine at monthly intervals for a maxim... Read More

Almost half the world’s population is at risk of malaria. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the disease when they become infected because pregnancy reduces a woman’s immunity, increasing the risk of illness, severe anemia, and death. For the fetus, maternal malaria increases the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, and low birth weight—a leading cause of child mortality. Globally, malaria in pregnancy (MIP) contributes to about 10,000 maternal de... Read More