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President's Malaria Initiative (PMI)

• What is the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI)?
• How does PMI work?
• What does PMI do?
• Where does PMI work?
• How Do CDC's Malaria and Entomology Branches Contribute to PMI?

What Is the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)?

The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) is a U.S. government initiative designed to cut malaria deaths in half in target countries in sub-Saharan Africa.  It was announced on June 30, 2005, when President Bush pledged to increase U.S. funding of malaria prevention and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa by more than $1.2 billion over 5 years.

How Does PMI Work?

PMI works in partnership with host country governments in Africa and builds on existing national programs. PMI is led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in conjunction with CDC.  These and other government agencies work with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria; the World Bank; Roll Back Malaria; UNICEF; and other organizations in supporting host countries’ malaria control efforts.

PMI collaborates with these governments and agencies to conduct initial country needs assessments, develop annual Malaria Operational Plans, participate in national malaria partner coordination mechanisms, and complement and expand on monitoring and evaluation strategies.

PMI also works with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including faith-based and community groups, academia, and the private sector.

Mother cradling sick child in her arms, Tanzania. (Courtesy UNHCR Malaria Team)

What Does PMI Do?

To reduce malaria deaths by half in each target country, PMI helps national governments deliver proven, effective interventions to a majority (85%) of people at greatest risk—pregnant women and children less than 5 years old.

The interventions involve expanding access to and use of:

• Long-lasting insecticide-treated nets
• Indoor residual spraying with approved insecticides
• Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs)
• Intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women.

To help deliver these interventions and make sure they are having the desired impact, PMI also focuses on

• Strengthening infrastructure (logistics, management, communication, training) that facilitates the interventions
• Providing commodities (including antimalarial drugs, insecticide-treated nets, and appropriate insecticides for residual spraying)
• Fostering private sector participation
• Conducting rigorous monitoring and evaluation to demonstrate results of PMI inputs and ensuring effective delivery of interventions.

Where Does PMI Work?

PMI is at work in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Benin, Ethiopia (Oromia region), Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique , Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. To find out more about PMI activities and results in these countries, visit the PMI web site*.

The first day of training of spray teams in Ondjiva, capital of Cunene Province, Angola. (Courtesy RTI and USAID)

A young mother draped with a Kataa Malaria (Reject Malaria) hijab, or head scarf, smiles after receiving a net. To mark the dual launch of PMI and the Kataa Malaria campaign, the Zanzibar Malaria Control Program, working with PMI, sponsored the ‘Kataa Malaria Bonanza.' (Courtesy Chris Thomas, USAID)

How Do CDC's Malaria and Entomology Branches Contribute to PMI?

As a public health agency with wide experience in malaria prevention and control, CDC brings to PMI strong and varied technical expertise that complements the contributions of other PMI partners.

Specialists in these branches:

Ms. Virginia Taona of the Mozambican Red Cross uses a PDA equipped with a GPS in a survey of insecticide-treated bed nets in rural Mozambique, February 2006. (Courtesy Ramesh Krishnamurthy)

• Jointly manage PMI activities with USAIDand provide hands-on capacity building by posting a Malaria Advisor in each PMI country.
• Help design PMI technical and programmatic strategies, including training, supervision, laboratory, communications, monitoring and evaluation, and surveillance systems.
• Develop plans to estimate the impact of malaria control and prevention efforts, including those supported by PMI.
• Provide overall entomologic support to PMI, including the evaluation of insecticidal activity and durability of LLINs and monitoring of the spread of insecticide resistance.
• Develop and implement cutting-edge survey methods utilizing PDA hand-held computers equipped with global positioning systems to conduct household surveys in remote villages.
• Evaluate the performance of health workers who treat patients with suspected malaria.
• Design and execute operations research activities to fill critical knowledge gaps and speed the scale-up of life-saving malaria control interventions.

Steve Smith, CDC chemist, uses a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer to measure the insecticide content of a treated bed net in rural Ghana. (Courtesy Joel Selanikio, DataDyne)

For more information on PMI, see

• PMI's website
• PMI's First Annual Report [PDF, 2.6 MB/64 pages]
• PMI's Second Annual Report [PDF, 5.3 MB]
• For information on Atlanta-based or overseas job opportunities with PMI through CDC, please go to http://www.usajobs.gov.

Please note: Some of these publications are available for download only as *.pdf files. These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. Please review the information on downloading and using Acrobat Reader software.

* Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.