World Malaria Day

The Malaria Matchbox is an assessment toolkit designed to ignite equity in malaria programs, by correlating data on populations’ acc ess and utilization of healthcare services with countries’ malaria programming across the continuum from control to elimination. Through ensuring consideration of the root causes of health inequities across different contexts, populations and groups of individuals and contributing to developing malaria programming plans , the toolkit aims to contribute to the ambitious global health targets set under SDG3, which call on the international community to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages, and in all settings, including humanitarian and fragile (4). This will ensure that no one is left behind, irrespective of who and where they are. Achieving the SDG sub-goals of reducing maternal, newborn and infant mortality (3.1 and 3.2), as well as ending HIV, TB, malaria and neglected tropical diseases (3.3) (5) requires a continued politic...

  In May 2019, the World Health Assembly called for accelerated progress towards Universal Health Coverage , with a focus on poor, vulnerable and marginalized in society. It is an admirable ambition, but an impossible one unless we tackle the resurgent threat of malaria. Malaria claims the lives of more than 400,000 people each year, largely in Africa . After an unprecedent period of success between 2000 and 2016, when more than 7 million lives were saved, progress against malaria has stalled. High-burden countries have seen an increase in the number of malaria cases. Children under the age of five, pregnant women, refugees and populations affected by conflicts and natural disasters are at higher risk. Getting back on-track in the fight against malaria requires a greater emphasis on the specific country contexts where malaria programs are deployed and on the characteristics of different population groups in need of healthcare services, in order to leave no one behind. It means un...