Devolution of health ministry: Malaria control project to be shelved

About US$70 million in funding might be stopped following the step.

ISLAMABAD:

The government will wind up Malaria Control Programme after the Ministry of Health is devolved to the provinces under the 18th Amendment on Thursday, official sources told The Express Tribune.

They said that the US$70 million in foreign funding is likely to be stopped. The government has been getting approximately US$ 1 million annually since 2002. The funding was boosted by Global Fund grants in 2004 and 2005. In Round 7 of the Global Fund, the Directorate of Malaria Control was granted over US$23 million.

For Round 10, about US$50 million were already approved and expected to be received in July this year after a signing ceremony. For Round 11, the Directorate of Malaria Control had already applied for the funding and was scheduled to receive it in August this year.

“We have no idea how Pakistan will receive these grants in the absence of the programme,” an official of the directorate said. “It is difficult to understand why the government has decided to wind up the programme, as malaria claims many lives every year. The programme is running across the country and is rigorously implemented in 38 districts,” the official added.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO), the estimated death toll due to the disease stands at about 1,500-2,000 every year in Pakistan.

The National Malaria Control Programme was initiated in Pakistan in 1950. Later in 1961, Malaria Control Programme was revamped to Malaria Eradication Program, with the financial and technical support from WHO, United Nations Development Programme and The United States Agency for International Development. In 1977, Malaria control activities were integrated with the Communicable Disease Control Selection the Provinces.

Pakistan joined Roll Back Malaria partnership in 1999 initiated by the WHO in collaboration with the World Bank, Bill & Mellinda Gates Foundation, UNDP and The United Nations Children’s Fund. Since then it has been endeavouring to strengthen malaria control system in the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of near zero malaria induced deaths by 2015.

Officials in the directorate ources said the control programme has not been at its optimum level in the country. There is an “acute shortage” of teams to control malaria in the suburbs of the capital, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2011.