Strategy

Strategy Part 1: Aggressive Control in the Malaria Heartland

Part 1 focuses on the need for greatly strengthened and expanded malaria control programs in the malaria heartland countries to achieve low transmission and mortality. The majority of deaths and disease from malaria occur in these tropical areas where the burden on the population and the economy is the greatest. Part 1 is the part of the overall strategy receiving the most investment and attention. It is from this strengthened counterattack against malaria in its heartland, especially in Africa, that the biggest benefits in reduced death and suffering will be achieved.

Strategy Part 2: Progressive Elimination from the Endemic Margins

Part 2 is an essential component to Part 1. Part 2 continues the historic process of progressively shrinking the malaria map. It reduces the number of countries that have to invest in fully developed malaria control programs. It decreases global incidence and brings hope and opportunity to the countries in the malaria heartland, ensuring that they also will eventually eliminate malaria from within their borders.    

Strategy Part 3: Research to Bring Forward New Tools

Part 3 of the strategy, strongly supported by many government and private research funders, is bringing forward new and improved tools to fight malaria. Malaria is a disease against which we can make much progress with today’s tools, but we also need to continually develop improved tools and techniques and to use them wisely and widely. For example, resistance by the malaria parasite to today’s drugs will eventually develop, and new generations of drugs will be required. The same is true for mosquitoes and the insecticides that we use against them. Vaccines against malaria are under development, and over the next decades, we will see the mobilization of several generations of vaccines of different kinds.