The ninth APMEN webinar “Community Participation: A Foundation for Malaria Elimination” was held on 25 November 2020 with participation from experts like Prof. Koen Peeters, Head of Unit: Medical Anthropology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; Josselyn Neukom, APMEN/APLMA Consultant, Cambodia; and Dr. Than Naing Soe, Director, Health Literacy Promotion Unit (HLPU), Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health and Sports, Myanmar. This webinar was moderated by Dr. Leo Braack, Technical Lead, APMEN Vector Control Working Group and Senior Vector Control Specialist, Malaria Consortium.
Waging a malaria elimination campaign without community support is like fighting a battle with one arm tied behind your back. We need the people who bear the brunt of malaria to understand what elimination program objectives are, and gain their help to identify, deliver and assess solutions likely to achieve these objectives. To successfully prevent malaria and other vector borne diseases, communities at risk need to be able to access the right tools, understand the benefits of using or facilitating (in the case of indoor residual spraying) vector control methods, seek diagnosis for fever and complete treatment for confirmed cases. As key stakeholders committed to eliminating malaria in Asia Pacific, we need to better understand how to effectively engage communities to achieve vector control program and elimination objectives. Our speakers explored these issues with lessons and insights during this APMEN TechTalks webinar.
Prof. Koen Peeters highlighted that the effectiveness of the vector control interventions requires engaging communities in the uptake of efficacious interventions, appropriate use of tools and their acceptability. Josselyn Neukom shared the lessons and best practices from the Asia Pacific region as well as the innovations with potential to facilitate community engagement with emerging priorities. Dr. Than Naing Soe presented on the elimination goal of the NMCP/Myanmar and how Integrated Community Malaria Volunteers (ICMV) have been used to engage communities in vector control successfully.
We thank everyone who attended the webinar, and the recording can be viewed here. The presentation can be downloaded from below links.