Malaria project holds review meeting

A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-led initiative, United Against Malaria (UAM) set up last year with the goal of supporting the global fight against malaria through football, has held a three-day review and planning conference in Accra.
Participants deliberated on the progress of the initiative and shared results of their efforts to make public the impact of the United Against Malaria (UAM) initiative.
United Against Malaria is a partnership of football teams and heroes, celebrities, health and advocacy organisations, governments, corporations and people who have united ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa to win the fight against malaria.
The goal of the team is to galvanise partners throughout the world to reach the United Nations target of universal access to mosquito nets and malaria medicine in Africa by the end of 2010, which is a crucial first step to reaching the international target of reducing deaths to near zero by 2015 through various policies.
These include strengthening political and public will in donor countries to increase malaria programming and funding; strengthening political commitment by African leadership to prioritise malaria control and increasing consistent and appropriate utilisation of prevention tools and malaria treatment in Africa.
Addressing the participants, the Programme Manager of Ghana’s Malaria Control Programme, Dr (Mrs) Constance Bart-Plange, said Ghana had embraced all the interventions introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its fight against malaria.
Those interventions, she noted, included the use of insecticide treated nets (ITNs), use of recommended drugs for treatment, preventive drugs for pregnant women, indoor residual spraying and environmental cleanliness, among others.
Dr Bart-Plange said from as low as three per cent use of ITNs for children under five in 2003, the use of the nets had increased to about 35 per cent presently.
She observed that looking at the interest majority of Ghanaians had in football, the partnership with the country’s football authority with support from key players as ambassadors to send the message of malaria to the people would work perfectly.
“Our people admire footballers and if they are used to spread the message, it will sink down to the people,” she pointed out.
The President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Mr Kwesi Nyantakyi, said the FIFA 2010 World Cup on the soil of Africa was a historic occasion which offered the individual football authorities the opportunity to use the game against malaria and also do all they could do to make a difference in the fight against the disease.
“For us at the GFA therefore, it is a social service obligation to be part of this campaign as we find the 3.2 million cases of malaria recorded each year in Ghana and the 20,000 children who die in a year of the disease totally unacceptable. In fact, malaria has held back our country for far too long and we must wake up and kick it out now,” he stressed.
The President of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), Mr Leodegar Tenga, said between 17 and 20 million Tanzanians were infected with malaria each year and out of the number, about 18,000 of them died.
He said there was the need for malaria to be eradicated from the African continent to allow majority of the people who enjoyed the game to have the energy to enjoy the game in good health.
For his part, a representative from Uganda who is also a former Captain of that country’s national football team, the Cranes, Mr Edgar Watson Soubi, said it was good football was being used to fight malaria, since it had the potential to prevent any player from playing, whether he was directly infected or affected by the death of a relative or a loved one through the disease.
The chairman of the event, who is also the Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr George Amofah, said with support from the people and financial assistance from the government and development partners, Ghana should be able to meet the target of reducing malaria to the barest minimum.