Next step in malaria strategy: paying for it

Following Wednesday’s announcement of an ambitious new five-year plan to eliminate malaria in Cambodia, National Centre for Malaria (CNM) officials and donors met again yesterday, this time to discuss patching up a $22.8 million budget gap to fund the strategy’s first two years. Financial estimates presented by the centre’s Dr Siv Sovannaroth show that only $26.1 million of the $48.9 million projected budget for 2016-2017 is currently available to pay for malaria surveillance programs developed for the new policy.

“We cannot talk about elimination without surveillance,” Dr Luciano Tuseo, malaria program head for WHO Cambodia, told attendees. According to a concept note distributed to donors yesterday, the new surveillance system seeks to improve on an old one it describes as “inefficient and duplicative”.

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