USAID and TICA Visit Myanmar to Launch Trilateral Malaria Control Activities

USAID/RDMA, the Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA), and the Thai Ministry of Public Health visited Myanmar in July to initiate the first trilateral collaboration activity on malaria control efforts. Thailand and the U.S. are bringing their expertise and resources to collaborate with the Myanmar Ministry of Public Health to tackle the challenge of drug resistant strains of malaria along the shared border regions of Thailand and Myanmar. Malaria control will be strengthened through capacity building of Myanmar’s Malaria Control Program staff on diagnosis, treatment, mosquito vector control and support for operational costs for delivering services in targeted areas. The team met with the Thai Ambassador to Myanmar in Rangoon to get his strategic overviews before going to Nay Pyi Taw to meet the Myanmar’s Minister of Health, Director General and Deputy Director General of Infectious Diseases. The team concluded the trip by visiting one of the potential project sites in Dawei, which is the construction workforce at the Dawei deep sea port construction project in Myanmar. 

The Thai and Myanmar Malaria Control Programs and TICA will collaborate with PMI’s Control and Prevention of Malaria program (CAP-Malaria) to establish malaria screening points. Volunteer malaria workers will distribute bed nets, screen patients with rapid diagnostic test kits, and treat positive cases in accordance with national malaria treatment guideline among the mobile and migrant population crossing the border. The volunteers will also coordinate with antenatal clinics to ensure every pregnant woman has a bed net and information to protect her from malaria infection. 

Related link: CAP-MALARIA

Source:  Health Matters Newsletter RDMA/Office of Public Health