Technical Meeting and Consultation on Malaria Management Actions in the Context of Ebola.

A technical meeting and consultation on malaria management actions in the context of Ebola virus disease epidemic took place in Abidjan on February 20-21, 2015.  This meeting was organized in collaboration with the West Africa Health organization (WAHO) and partners of Roll Back Malaria’s West Africa Regional Network (WARN).

The meeting objectives were as follow:

• Review and assess the implementation of WHO recommendations on temporary malaria control measures in the countries affected by Ebola.
• Exchange of good practices on the fight against malaria in the context of Ebola.
• Identify needs of technical support for the 3 most affected countries by Ebola: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
• Exchange with Cote d’Ivoire and Mali on how they are managing malaria at their boarders with countries affected by Ebola.
• Assess the needs in order to fill the gaps of funding and additional resources for the fight against malaria in this context including funding from the Global Fund, PMI and others resources particularly the resource to be dedicated to health system strengthening after Ebola.

Professor Boa Yapo Felix, Managing Director of the Ministry of Heath of Ivory Coast, chaired this important meeting in presence of Yacine Djibo, Co-chair of WARN, Dr. Tete Amouh, representative of WAHO, the three countries affected by Ebola (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone), Ivory Coast and Mali as observers and technical and financial partners such as CDC, CRS, Plan, PMI and Speak Up Africa.

This meeting is a follow up from the annual WARN meeting that took place in Niamey, Niger in November 2014.  During this meeting, a consultation on this important topic took place and the affected countries requested the organization of a meeting to further discuss and share best practices.

During this two-day meeting, the following recommendations were adopted:

• Liberia and Sierra Leone will undertake studies on the impact of Ebola on malaria, as was done by Guinea and the results will be presented to the technical and financial partners.
• The NMCP will update their attenuation plans of the impact of Ebola based on the results of the studies.
• The NMCP will reinforce the collaboration with the Ebola coordination committee in their respective countries.  It is requested that RBM/WARN do a mission to Guinea to help the NMCP to better integrate the coordination committee of Ebola.
• The NMCP will get involved in all the national committees working on the post Ebola National Plan and all resource mobilization initiatives.
• The NMCP will provide the orientations and the needs of the NMCP to be included in the national budgeted action plan post Ebola.
• The three countries affected by Ebola will update their Gap analysis.
• The NMCP to have a special quantification section to capture needed supplies for emergencies such as nets, drugs, test kits.
• The NMCP, in collaboration with their partners, will advocate to mobilize the necessary resources needed to implement the priority activities.
• Special considerations on IPC to tap into existing national initiative and ensure availability of all services including integrated community case management and private sector to resume 3Ts.
• The NMCP to finalize their malaria planning for 2015 and roadmap elaboration before 15th march 2015.
• RBM / WARN will organize monthly conference calls between the impacted countries to get an update on the implementation of malaria control interventions as to facilitate information sharing.
• RBM/WARN will organize quarterly meeting to share information and experiences between the affected countries. The next meeting will take place in Guinea.
• RBM/ WARN will organize World Malaria Day on April 25, 2015 in one of the Ebola affected countries (Guinea).