Local malaria fight gets financial injection from Global Fund

Apr 17, 2014 News

Guyana’s malaria fight has been boosted by a US$1.2 million Global Fund grant, which according to the Ministry of Health’s Vector Control Director, Dr. Reyaud Rahman, will be utilized over the next three years.
And according to Dr. Rahman, although the funding may appear to be sizeable, “for the amount of work we have to do, it is really not…” In fact the Vector Control Director said that the additional injection was perhaps in response to his continued

Vector Control Director, Dr Reyaud Rahman

efforts to solicit support from Global Fund. “I have been writing them constantly telling them about our constraints and everything else and to some extent I think that they actually listened. “I think they have recognized our hard work over the past year and they have seen we are really committed and that we are managing (our programme) properly,” said Dr. Rahman.
The funding made available to Guyana comes at a time when Global Fund is gearing to put in place a new funding model to which countries will have to embrace in order to secure continued support.
Global Fund has over the years been lending substantial financial aid to combat the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Tuberculosis and malaria in countries across the world.
Moreover, Global Fund recently spearheaded a meeting in Jamaica to which representatives of aid-seeking countries were invited to attend. Dr. Rahman was among those who attended on Guyana’s behalf. “They wanted to teach us, and show us their new funding model,” said Dr. Rahman of the recent meeting.
At that very meeting the Vector Control Director said that Global Fund officials announced that Guyana would be entitled to apply for a further US$1.3 million which will translate to Guyana being eligible for US$2.5 million over the next three years. But according to him gaining access to the additional funds will not merely be premised on “yes you can apply and that’s it.”
In fact, he explained that a lengthy process will be required whereby “we need to pretty much write another proposal, in addition to the one we have, and they (Global Fund) are calling it a concept note but before we do all that we need to get some other things done like costing our strategic plan.”
“We need to get all stakeholders together and have meetings ahead of the Global Fund mission coming (here) in May or June and we need to get these things done as soon as possible, because this process may take as long as nine months to get done,” said Dr. Rahman as he insisted that Guyana is very much in need of additional funding “if we want to decrease malaria further.”
Guyana last year recorded less than 30,000 cases of malaria cases and, according to Dr. Rahman, the aim of the local programme is to halve that amount, even as he noted that it is not expected that the process will be fast but it is hoped that the reduction will be continuous.
Guyana’s fight against malaria, Dr. Rahman said, is currently not only in conformity with best practices but they are on target as recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO).
In fact, Dr. Rahman only recently attended a WHO meeting which was convened in Panama that was designed to craft a strategy on the management and control for malaria for the next 10 years.
The meeting which was described as intense by Dr. Rahman was attended by medical experts from throughout the world who were tasked with reviewing relevant documents with a view of ascertaining if they were practical for the various countries’ setting. “Some of the main things that came out of the meeting were the sustainability of the direction forward in terms of, if we should concentrate more on the distribution of long-lasting bed nets; if we should do more in-door residual spraying and how we can advocate and get increased public awareness,” said the Vector Control Director.
The meeting saw the participants examining the importance of microscopy and comparing its use to Rapid Diagnostic Testing (RDT) to diagnose malaria. And according to Dr. Rahman, “we can safely say that we, as a country (Guyana), were involved in the construction of a document which would give us direction for the next 10 years and we were integrally involved in that process.”
At the meeting Dr. Rahman was appointed as a mediator representing the Caribbean Region, a capacity which saw him being among a group leading the discussion for the Caribbean and monitoring the things that needed to be discussed. “We had to come up with a plan and then do a presentation at the end of the discussion…It was like heading the Caribbean aspect of the discussions,” said Dr. Rahman who disclosed that at the end of the meeting “it was clear that we (Guyana) are on target.
His disclosure was in light of the fact that Guyana’s recently completed a four-year Strategic Plan that has in place “99 per cent of the things we discussed at the meeting.”
He reiterated that while Guyana is not required to make a great deal of changes to its existing programme, there is however, need for additional funds to be invested. “We are on stream with the technical aspect of things but we will have to beef up our activities throughout the Regions…we are doing the right things but we just need to start investing a bit more in malaria,” asserted Dr. Rahman.