USAID's Key Achievements

USAID's Leadership on the Ground

USAID is providing global leadership and support for country implementation in the following ways:

1. Recognizing and treating malaria in the home, community, marketplace, and primary health care facility, including support to the Malaria Communities Program, the CORE Group and country nongovernmental organization coordinating mechanisms, collaborating agency projects such as BASICS and the C-Change Project [PDF, 194KB]
   
   
2. Developing public-private partnerships in prevention and treatment, including the central NetMark Project and country-specific collaborations with Population Services International
   
   
3. Integrating malaria in pregnancy into reproductive and maternal/neonatal health programs and working to strengthen those programs (e.g., the ACCESS program)
   
   
4. Strengthening preventive vector control programs, including insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs), indoor residual spraying (largely though a central contract with RTI International), and the safer use of insecticides through RTI International, the International Resources Group, and an Integrated Vector Management Project
   
   
5. Developing new tools and systems for laboratory diagnosis of malaria information systems, supply chain management, drug quality, and program management
   
   
6. Working at the national policy level to ensure national malaria treatment policies and access to ITNs, including reduction of taxes and tariffs



7. Working with the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish regional coordinating bodies in the Amazon Basin and Mekong Delta region, and supporting Roll Back Malaria (RBM) and the “subregional networks” in Africa
   
   
8. Working with partners at the global level, including WHO, RBM, UNICEF, and World Bank, as well as foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to coordinate and focus global malaria control efforts, including support to countries for successful Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria applications
   
   
9. Supporting research and development into new tools to fight malaria, including vaccines and new antimalarial drugs and malaria drugs

The key achievement is reduction in malaria-related illness and death. While the President's Malaria Initiative is certainly not working alone, the countries USAID is helping to support are beginning to see significant impact, including Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

USAID's Key Achievements in Malaria

USAID Support to Antimalarial Drug Discovery and Development
Because of the spread and intensification of antimalarial drug resistance and the limited number of new antimalarial drugs available, USAID supports discovery and development of new antimalarial drugs through the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), a nonprofit, public-private partnership created in 1999. The research and development activities are carried out at a broad variety of institutions, comprising more than 40 academic and pharmaceutical organizations located in 10 different countries, including the United States. MMV currently has 38 products in its research and development portfolio at various stages of development, from the discovery phase to late-stage clinical development. These include three artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), a dispersible formulation of artemether-lumefantrine for young children, which has now been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Two other ACTs, dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine and pyronaridine-artesunate, are in late-stage clinical trials and are expected to be registered in 2010.

http://www.mmv.org

USAID a Leader in the Global Effort to Develop Malaria Vaccines
Since its inception in 1966, the USAID Malaria Vaccine Development Program (MVDP) has been a major contributor to progress toward a vaccine to prevent disease and death due to malaria. Today it continues to work with partners in the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services and the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), at the Program for Appropriate Technology for Health, as well as international partners, toward the development of vaccines with greater efficacy than the single malaria vaccine now on track for licensure in 2011.  This vaccine, initially developed by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (GSK) with U.S. Government support, will soon enter pivotal field trials, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through MVI.  However, this first-generation vaccine will have a protective of about 50 percent or less, short of what is needed and possible. Consequently, USAID and its partners are implementing a multifaceted strategy to develop an advanced product while evaluating the potential role of the GSK vaccine in malaria control programs.  The internationally agreed upon goal for the next generation vaccine is at least 80 percent efficacy against clinical malaria.

Access more information on USAID's Malaria Vaccine Development Program

Strengthening Roll Back Malaria
USAID has been a key partner in the RBM initiative since its inception in late 1998.  USAID helps support the secretariats for two of the working groups, and USAID staff serve as members of the major RBM Working Groups on malaria in pregnancy, vector control, monitoring and evaluation, and procurement and supply chain management.  As a funder and member of the RBM Harmonization Working Group, USAID has played an important role in the success rate of greater than 75 percent for Global Fund malaria grant applications in African countries during the last two rounds (Rounds 7 and 8) of Global Fund applications.  

New Tools for Malaria Management
USAID supported the development of a community malaria management tool in Africa and the Mekong Delta region countries of Southeast Asia. The tool will help identify and explore factors associated with access to drugs, consumer care-seeking behaviors, and other practices that affect the spread of multidrug-resistant malaria in these areas. The tool, which is being applied in Cambodia, Thailand, and Senegal, will develop indicators for surveillance of drug use behaviors and identify interventions to promote a more rational approach to treatment. USAID has also addressed poor antimalarial drug quality in Africa and Southeast Asia by supporting assessments and analyses of drugs available through the public sector and in both formal and informal private facilities. The findings demonstrated that both substandard and counterfeit antimalarial drugs are widespread. Interventions and training to help countries monitor and respond to this problem will take place in the coming year.