Also interesting is the one by Nils Kaehler et al. 2019. Malaria Journal. Prospects and strategies for malaria elimination in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: a qualitative study.

https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-019-2835-6 . The conclusions of this study include: “Against a backdrop of increasing anti-malarial resistance and decreasing choices of anti-malarial regimens, policy makers and researchers stressed the urgency of finding new malaria elimination strategies. There was consensus that multi-pronged strategies and approaches are needed, that no single potential tool/strategy can be appropriate to all settings. Hence there is a need to customize malaria control and elimination strategies based on the better surveillance data”. This short Conclusions section does not do justice to the excellent content of the paper, highly interesting.

APMEN supporting malaria elimination objectives of member states: The 2^nd International Malaria Vector Surveillance for Elimination course recently completed.

The APMEN VCWG partnered with Kasetsart University in Bangkok to present the 2^nd International Malaria Surveillance for Elimination course between 29^th September and 11^th October. The course was held under the leadership of Professor Theeraphap Chareonviriyaphap, and focused on capacity building in Country Partner NMCP entomology staff as well as representatives of academic institutions across Asia Pacific. Main training themes included malaria vector diversity, identification, sampling methods and sample processing, but also a good number of topics relevant to malaria entomologists such as Work Plan development, GIS, mapping, Insectary techniques, and Insecticide Susceptibility testing. We were fortunate in getting the commitment of ten experts in these topics to fly in to present lectures and help with the practical work. Thank you to all these people for their support, time and goodwill! The course was attended by 30 participants from 20 countries in the Asia Pacific region, and were selected on a competitive basis. APMEN (by way of a grant from Sumitomo Chemical Company) covered the bulk of the costs of the course, with significant contributions from supporting institutions including Kasetsart University and ACT Malaria.

PMI is seeking malaria research partners: Please see below a message sent out by RBM VCWG

The President’s Malaria Initiative: Evaluation & Research-to-Use Implementation Project

Solicitation Number: GH-BAA-2018-Addendum 04

Agency: Agency for International Development

Office: Washington D.C.

Location: USAID/Washington

Synopsis: 

Through this BAA addendum, USAID seeks creation of a malaria evaluation and research partnership, via an organization or group of organizations, to conduct future program evaluation and research activities, establish consensus for new collaborative research ideas, synthesize and conduct meta-analysis of existing malaria data, and provide solutions to improve evaluation and research data utilization. Please see the following links for more details.

FedBizOpps – https://www.fbo.gov/spg/AID/OP/WashingtonDC/GH-BAA-2018-Addendum04/listing.html

Grants.gov – https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=320960

VectorWorks Releases NetCALC Lite!K

The U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative VectorWorks Project is pleased to release NetCALC Lite (https://www.vector-works.org/resources/netcalc-planning-tool/). A simplified version of the original NetCALC tool, it is an insecticide-treated net (ITN) quantification tool designed to guide users toward an estimate of their ITN need by distribution channel. This new tool allows users to either input their desired distribution channels or to have NetCALC Lite recommend a channel mix based on a few questions concerning the context of the distribution environment. In as little as five minutes, users can have a printable report detailing ITN need to fulfill programmatic needs in the coming years.

For more information and to access the tool, visit: https://www.vector-works.org/resources/netcalc-planning-tool/