EDCTP at the MIM Society 8th Pan-African Malaria Conference and site visit in Rwanda

The Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Society 8th Pan-African Malaria Conference took place on 21-27 April 2024 in Kigali, Rwanda under the theme ‘Grassroots mobilization to end malaria: invest, innovate and integrate‘. The conference provided a platform to share perspectives that strengthen efforts towards locally-driven R&D and grassroots mobilization to end malaria through innovation, collaborations, political and financial investment and synergy among key stakeholders.

Several grantees supported by the EDCTP2 and Global Health EDCTP3 programmes presented their work in scientific symposia, plenaries, oral and poster presentations. A complete overview of sessions and presentations is available here.

Professor Marcel Tanner, High Representative, Dr Thomas Nyirenda, Strategic Partnerships & Capacity Development Manager and Head of Africa Office, and Dr Montserrat Blázquez Domingo, Senior Project Officer, represented EDCTP at MIM 2024.

On 24 April 2024, the EDCTP team was invited by the Rwanda Biomedical Centre to visit the Rukara village outside Kigali where community health workers and volunteers have been placed at the heart of integrated malaria elimination activities, including clinical care of index cases, active case finding among close contacts of index cases, indoor spraying, surveillance linked to catching mosquitoes for entomological studies, and destruction of breeding places of mosquitoes. Malaria cases at Rukara Health Centre have dropped from 3,184 cases in 2020, to 748 in 2021, to 47 in 2022, slightly up to 75 in 2023, and currently at 23 cases in 2024.

The team also met with representatives of the Ministry of Health in Rwanda to discuss preparations for the Twelfth EDCTP Forum to be held in Kigali in 2025.