Today, the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) announced a new five-year, up to $809 million project subject to the availability of funds, to further PMI’s global commitment to end malaria. The Prevention of Malaria through Vector Control project will partner with national malaria programs across the world to conduct indoor residual spraying campaigns to protect people from malaria-carrying mosquitoes in their homes and distribute insecticide treated nets to keep people safe from mosquito bites at night—two proven, life-saving malaria prevention tools that have helped save millions of lives. Partnering with local research institutions, the project will conduct entomological monitoring of mosquito populations, their behavior, and their insecticide resistance and adapt as necessary to ensure the most effective malaria interventions are used. The project will also pilot and scale up new tools being developed to improve protection against malaria and tailor interventions to local contexts.
The new project builds on work under the PMI VectorLink Project, awarded in 2017, which currently operates in 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Cambodia and Colombia. In 2021, PMI VectorLink protected more than 35 million people from malaria. The project partnered with more than 75 local research institutions to implement entomological surveillance, including Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD) in Senegal, Jimma University in Ethiopia, Noguchi Medical Research Institute in Ghana, and Malaria Alert Center (MAC) in Malawi, and with partners such as the Communication for Development Foundation Uganda to lead social and behavior change activities to increase community commitment to indoor residual spraying.
Developing local partnerships in alignment with USAID’s Local Capacity Strengthening Policy, the new project will continue efforts to equip national malaria programs and other local partners to increasingly lead, plan, and implement malaria prevention activities in their countries, such as indoor spraying and net distribution. A recent example is the transitioning under the PMI VectorLink Project of all indoor residual spraying activity in Zanzibar to the Ministry of Health’s malaria elimination program.
Abt Associates will lead the new project, working with partners that include PATH; Population Services International (PSI); BAO Systems; Dimagi Inc.; EnCompass; Health Information Systems Program (HISP) Centre—including HISP Eastern and Southern Africa, and HISP Western and Central Africa; Malaria Consortium; Tropical Health; and the University of California, San Francisco, Malaria Elimination Initiative.
Malaria is the leading cause of death among children under five in Sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly half the world’s population is at risk of its transmission. PMI and its partners around the globe have made remarkable progress in reducing cases and deaths—helping to save 11.7 million lives and prevent approximately 2 billion malaria infections since 2000.
About PMI
Led by USAID and co-implemented with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PMI works in 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and three programs in the Greater Mekong Subregion in Southeast Asia — an area representing almost 90 percent of the global malaria burden. PMI delivers cost-effective, life-saving malaria interventions and equips partner countries to end malaria through operational and technical assistance.