On World Malaria Day 2012, WHO hails global progress in combating malaria but highlights the need to further reinforce the fight. The Global Malaria Programme’s new initiative, T3: Test. Treat. Track, urges malaria-endemic countries and donors to move towards universal access to diagnostic testing and antimalarial treatment, and to build stronger malaria surveillance systems.
The initiative seeks to focus the attention of policy-makers and donors on the importance of adopting WHO’s latest evidence-based recommendations on diagnostic testing, treatment and surveillance, and updating existing malaria control and elimination strategies, as well as country-specific operational plans.
Malaria-endemic countries should ensure that every suspected malaria case is tested, that every confirmed case is treated with a quality-assured antimalarial medicine, and that the disease is tracked through timely and accurate surveillance systems to guide policy and operational decisions.
WHO has published technical guidance for all three pillars of T3: Test, Treat, Track – releasing the final two documents of the package, Disease Surveillance for Malaria Control, and Disease Surveillance for Malaria Elimination, today.
“Until countries are able to test, treat, and report every malaria case, we will never defeat this disease,” says Dr Margaret Chan, who is in Namibia for World Malaria Day this year. "We need strong and sustained political commitment from all countries where malaria is endemic, and from the global health community, to see this fight through to the end.”
A million lives saved
“In the past ten years, increased investment in malaria prevention and control has saved more than a million lives,” says Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. “This is a tremendous achievement. But we are still far from achieving universal access to life-saving malaria interventions.”
T3: Test, Treat, Track
“T3: Test, Treat, Track aims to galvanize endemic countries and their partners to build on the success of malaria prevention efforts over the past decade,” says Dr Robert Newman, Director of WHO’s Global Malaria Programme. “In recent years, there has been major progress in the development of new diagnostic tools and highly effective antimalarial medicines. The challenge now is to ensure these tools get used, and that countries accurately measure their public health impact.”
In line with WHO’s inititiave, the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD) through its Regional Research Consortium came up with the 2011-2016 National Unified Health Research Agenda (NUHRA), which includes a. Health Technology Development b. Health Financing c. Health Service Delivery and d. Socio-Environmental Health Concerns: Environmental and Climate Change, where disease transmission is affected by environmental health. A specific topic includes the development of integrated models to reduce affected changes in the environment (eg. malaria, dengue, leptospirosis, cholera, and typhoid, tuberculosis MDR and XDR) and Health Social Sciences (including Community Development.
With the new initiative of the WHO and the 2011-2016 NUHRA guidelines, interested researchers are encouraged to submit researches in line with the said concerns. For queries and information, interested researchers may reach us through Mr. Ricardo J. Apolinario III at Zamboanga Consortium for Health Research and Development, DOST IX Compound, Capt. F. Marcos St. cor. Gen Alvarez St., Pettit Barracks, Zamboanga City 7000 with telephone numbers Tel No. (062) 991-1024 || TeleFax (062) 992-1114 Website: region9.healthresearch.ph or E-mail us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. || This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
