Successful elimination and prevention of re-establishment of malaria in Tunisia

Overview

This case study describes and evaluates malaria control activities in Tunisia and the subsequent strategies adopted to eliminate the disease. Achieving this goal was a long process requiring comprehensive strategies and policies nationwide, as well as substantial financial resources. Once malaria-free status was attained, additional long-term efforts and financing were needed to prevent the reestablishment of autochthonous malaria transmission. This was managed through the implementation of strategies based on prevention, surveillance and early management of imported cases. 

A number of lessons can be learned from the campaign to control, and later eliminate, malaria in Tunisia, and from the strategies that have effectively prevented the re-establishment of renewed local transmission over the past 35 years.

This case study is the final document in a series of 10 publications on malaria elimination produced by the WHO Global Malaria Programme and the Global Health Group at the University of California in San Francisco, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this series, national malaria control programmes and researchers report on what works – and what does not – for reaching and sustaining zero malaria transmission.

Other reports have documented the malaria elimination process in Cape Verde, Bhutan, Malaysia, Mauritius, the Philippines, the Island of Reunion, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Turkmenistan.