A WHO Meeting on Progress Achieved with Malaria Elimination in the WHO European Region started its work at the President Hotel on October 30.

The three-day forum is organised by the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Turkmenistan and the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

The forum brought together the representatives of the Global Malaria Programme from the WHO headquarters, the WHO European Office, the entomologists and specialists of the sanitary and epidemiological agencies involved in designing the national malaria control and prevention programmes in the countries of the region, in particular the Russian Federation, Republic of Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran,

The overview on the current malaria control activity throughout the world, the reports on successful implementation of the malaria elimination programmes in the WHO European Region, the problems and constrains the national malaria control programmes faced in the current period and the modern methods to control and prevent infectious diseases, including malaria, were presented on the first of the meeting. It is symbolic that this year’s meeting takes place almost two years following the endorsement of the Tashkent Declaration “The move from Malaria Control to Elimination” by the countries of the WHO European Region that serves as a reference point for concerted efforts in this direction.

Those speaking at the meeting noted that malaria remained a public health problem and the burden to world community. Facing the necessity to curb large-scale epidemics of malaria in Central Asia, the Trans-Caucasian region and Turkey in the mid-1990s caused mainly by the political and socio-economic changes, mass population migration and the liquidation of the common network for monitoring anti-malarial treatment the WHO Regional Office for Europe had committed itself to an intensive response to the burden of malaria, and had by 1999 developed a regional strategy to Roll Back Malaria (RBM) that stipulated for a strong participatory approach with clear roles and responsibilities of all partners concerned including the governments and the international organisations. The reduction in the reported number of malaria cases by almost a fifteen-fold over the past eight years was the visible achievement of the regional malaria programme.

The participants stated that Turkmenistan, where no malaria cases had been registered since 2006, achieved the remarkable progress with malaria elimination and could serve as an example of active work among the Central Asian states. The participants emphasized that the effective measures and fundamental reform of the national healthcare system that had achieved the considerable reduction of sickness rate offered a powerful incentive to develop. The measures including strict epidemiological control, proper anti-malaria activity management, close co-operation with the international organisations and large-scale sanitary and educational activity enabled to reduce the incidence of malaria in the country.

In this regard the participants expressed belief that through intensifying interaction with the WHO and its international and regional partners, successively implementing the relevant national programme within the regional strategy Turkmenistan would interrupt the transmission of malaria by 2010 and eliminate the disease in the country.