As we honor World Malaria Day, we in the PAN International network stand with communities around the world suffering from the scourge of this disease. At PAN Africa, we also continue our community work to share better information about environmental strategies for mosquito control — with great progress in communities near Dakar, Senegal, where we've been working since 2012.
A new World Malaria Day is around the corner and we at PAN applaud the strides made to combat this deadly disease over the past year.
Next month we’ll be closely following discussions at the Conference of Parties of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (aka the “POPs Treaty”) in Geneva. This is the body that banned DDT globally back in 2004, except for limited and specific uses for malaria control.
At the upcoming meeting, the use of DDT for malaria control will be reviewed — and its continued use will likely be recommended.
April 25th is World Malaria Day, a time to look back at progress made over the past year in the quest to control this dangerous disease. We also take a look at progress made in the shift toward sustainable, least toxic and effective malaria control tools.
Last year, we marked the day by highlighting on-the-ground successes in Senegal, Kenya and Ethiopia in reducing malaria with community based approaches. This year I join my colleague Dr. Paul Saoke from Physicians for Social Responsibility, Kenya to give our on-the-ground perspective on the path we think malaria control needs to take going forward.
Today, on April 25th, we celebrate World Malaria Day. It’s an opportunity to reflect on a serious disease that still affects far too many of the world’s poor. For Africans like myself, it is also an opportunity to highlight an on-the-ground perspective of how best to control malaria.
We've seen that the most effective strategies don't rely on chemical solutions, but on a comprehensive set of tools like biological control of disease vectors, environmental management, individual protections and public health education.
