Purging the Burden: Expanding Malaria Elimination in Southern Africa
Location(s): Tanzania; Botswana; Namibia; Swaziland
Exxon Mobil Corporation announced a grant to the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), to expand its core support for an unprecedented malaria elimination effort in southern Africa. The UCSF Global Health Group and its partners currently provide significant support to Botswana and Swaziland in the development of strategic plans to eliminate malaria from those countries. The Group will use the funding to build on this support, and expand it to additional southern African countries such as Namibia and Zanzibar. This work, conducted in partnership with the Clinton Foundation, is a cornerstone of the Global Health Group’s Malaria Elimination Initiative, which seeks to eliminate the disease in several countries around the world, working inward from the natural global borders of the disease. Funding will also allow the Global Health Group - Clinton Foundation partnership to support development and enhancement of critical cross-border initiatives between countries with low levels of malaria and their more heavily-affected neighbors, helping to control the disease and pave the way for elimination. Resources will also be used to support rigorous monitoring and evaluation, and sharing of lessons and experiences with the broader malaria elimination community.
The Global Health Group (GHG) of the UCSF Global Health Sciences is an "Action Tank" dedicated to translating new public health approaches into large-scale action to improve the lives of millions of people. Led by Sir Richard Feachem – formerly the founding Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – the GHG works across the spectrum from analysis to policy formulation, consensus building, international collaboration and large-scale implementation of programs worldwide. The GHG's Malaria Elimination Initiative was established to support and enable malaria elimination initiatives around the world, including those in southern Africa, Melanesia and China. The GHG convened the Malaria Elimination Group, which brings together experts from the scientific, policy and program communities from 15 countries to provide guidance, advocacy and support to country and regional elimination efforts. The GHG conducts its southern Africa work through the Southern African Malaria Elimination Support Team, a jointly-funded partnership with the Clinton Foundation, as well as other key partners.