Malaria is a major public health problem in Bangladesh, particularly in the southeastern hill tract districts. Out of 64 districts, the 13 districts bordering India and Myanmar are high endemic malaria zones, contributing to 98% of the total malaria cases every year.
The National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), with support from the WHO Bangladesh office, is updating the NMCP and National Malaria Treatment Regimen. During two recent stakeholder orientation workshops, the present malaria situation and phase-out programme strategies were discussed. Objectives of the workshops were to improve the capacity of district and upazila managers on planning, implementation and monitoring & evaluation of malaria control programme and also to improve the managers’ management skills for effective malaria control. Specific topics included current malaria situation, surveillance, programme management diagnosis, malaria treatment and follow-up and severe malaria cases supervision and monitoring. The orientation was conducted by the national level experts, medical college professors and programme personnel.
These orientation workshops strengthened particpants’ knowledge to implement future NMCP activities which hopes to achieve “zero transmission and zero death by 2030”.