Francistown, Botswana, 15 September 2016 - The Ministry of Health in Botswana and the World Health Organization convened a three day meeting, for over 100 health sector stakeholders, including Ministry of Health (MoH) top officials, District Health Management Teams (DHMTs), partners, academia and researchers, to assess progress made in the implementation of set targets for Botswana’s malaria elimination efforts.

The meeting afforded participants opportunities to identify strategies for improvement of the quality and coverage of interventions for elimination of malaria in the country. The interactive meeting sessions were structured to cover technical presentations, discussions and plenary sessions to outline achievements, challenges, lessons learnt, and key next steps in moving towards elimination.

In his key note address, Dr Kgosi Mompati, an acknowledged veteran in the fight against malaria in Botswana, stated that “despite several hurdles encountered including issues related to climate change, Botswana is on the right path towards malaria elimination”. According to Dr Mompati, “Botswana has recorded significant strides in controlling malaria to a point where elimination is within the graps of the country as evidenced by the dramatic drop in the number of reported cases from 2548 cases in 2016 to 678 cases in 2016”. He concluded by saying “Therefore, there is no reason why Botswana should fail to achieve the goal of malaria elimination by 2018”.

The WHO country representative, Dr Martins Ovberedjo, congratulated the government of Botswana for organizing the national stakeholder forum, which he described as a great opportunity for the country to reenergize and focus efforts on malaria elimination. He reminded the participants that the meeting provided an opportunity for consolidating and reversing the malaria situation “Getting the upper hand and holding this disease at bay - a situation which requires multiple actions on multiple fronts”.

Dr Ovberedjo further stated that while commendable progress has been achieved, malaria still remains a major public health and development challenge, and “therefore the fight is far from over!” He cited factors including weak surveillance systems, weak community mobilization and involvement, and called upon participants to take concrete actions to generate necessary improvements. Concluding his speech he restated WHO’s continued commitment to support the MoH, and also called on participants to do more to achieve the Botswana’s vision of eliminating malaria. “A malaria-free Botswana is possible through stronger collaboration of partners and cross border interventions” he said.

Following presentations and plenary discussions, facilitated by Mr K Gausi, a Malaria Surveillance Specialist from WHO IST/ESA, the meeting agreed on key discussion points and next steps for future actions including:

1. Partners and stakeholders support to the country to achieve a comprehensive case based surveillance system;
2. Need for support to the national malaria programme to ensure regular tracking of indicators in the strategic plan and regular data reviews and audits;
3. Build district’s capacity on ownership and use of generated data at district  level and use data for decision making;
4. Importance of regular stakeholders engagement with communities and district authorities on malaria elimination efforts country wide continuous training and re-training of health workers  to up their skills and knowledge on malaria elimination.

Following the adoption of Key next steps for action, programme leaders from each stakeholder group, including the MOH authorities, led by the Permanent Secretary, DHMTs, the UN lead by WHO and NGOs present each took turns to make public pledges to support programme actions to contribute to the achievement of Botswana malaria elimination goals. 

The meeting was officially closed by the Permanent Secretary MOH, Mrs Shenaaz Halabi, who expressed the need to change from business as usual to business unusual if we are to be game changers and beat malaria. She articulated the need to engage more partners in the fight against malaria. She encouraged Districts Health Management Teams to actively engage districts leadership in malaria elimination efforts. Mrs Halabi also called on everyone to be accountable by making sure they deploy their technical expertise to monitor activities. She concluded her speech by asking partners and districts leadership to make commitment to support the quest to eliminate malaria in Botswana by 2018.

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For further information please contact: Ms K Moakofhi, NPO/Malaria, moakofhik [at] who.int (moakofhik[at]who[dot]int)

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01 Stakeholder Commitment to the Elimination of Malaria

02 Participants of the Malaria Elimination Review and Planning Meeting

03 Dr M Ovberedjo, WHO Representative, giving remarks

04 Dr K Mompati, Consultant, giving keynote address

05 Ms T Mosweunyane, Nat Malaria Programme Manager, spelling out the meeting objectives

06 Mr K Gausi, M and E Specialist - IST ESA, responding to questions and comments

07 Ms K Moakofhi, NPO-Malaria 0fficer, presenting on implementation framework for GTS