The World Health Assembly, at the end of May 2021, adopted a resolution urging countries to increase their efforts in scaling up the recommendations of WHO’s updated global malaria strategy and the WHO Guidelines for malaria. The resolution calls on countries to extend investment in and support for health services, ensuring that no one is left behind; sustain and scale up sufficient funding for the global malaria response; and boost investment in the research and development of new tools.
As of today, tools available to fight malaria include bed nets treated with insecticide, indoor residual spraying, rapid diagnostic tests, drugs, and the first-generation malaria vaccine that is being piloted in Africa—the result of innovation by the private sector, but also governments, research organizations, international organizations, and civil society. Developing novel tools to prevent, treat, and diagnose the disease is crucial—and opportunities have expanded to creating new ways of using the tools we already have, finding how to effectively reach the most at-risk and often distant populations[i], as well as finding innovative financing mechanisms. Examples include digital health solutions, such as the digital health platform UpSCALE, which was developed by the Malaria Consortium together with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and UNICEFs to support community health workers in Mozambique in diagnosing and treating malaria; Zipline, an aerial logistics company that specializes in the delivery of medical products by drones (learn more in our Q&A below); companies working on developing innovative diagnostic tools as outlined in our next article; and innovative finance for malaria such as blended finance, outcome-based financing, and other financing mechanisms as currently developed by the Global Fund.
Innovating for malaria requires a strong support from every sector, to implement and scale the tools we already have and develop some new ones. For key messages around malaria and innovation, check out RBM’s Malaria Innovation Narrative here. To learn more about how non-traditional sectors can get involved in malaria innovation, from banking to the extractive industry, agriculture, and others, check out the Business Alliance’s Against Malaria Investment Case here.
[i] Gonzales M. “the long-term bet on innovation for malaria.” 9 September 2019. Accessed June 2021. https://bit.ly/2SDgt2w