World Malaria Day – 25th April 2019
“Zero malaria starts with me”
World Health Organisation reports urgent action is needed in the global response to malaria.
After initially seeing a marked improvement in reducing the total number of malaria deaths since 2000, progress has stalled in recent years.1
This has led the WHO to promote a grassroots campaign, “Zero malaria starts with me” in order to mobilise resources in the response to the mosquito-borne infectious disease.
Every two minutes, a child dies of this preventable and treatable disease. And each year, more than 200 million new cases of the disease are reported.
World Health Organisation 2
Keeping malaria high on the political agenda aims to reduce malaria deaths by encouraging support for countries with high infection rates, especially those in Africa. Country-owned responses are key; empowering malaria-affected communities to address their own prevention and care is vital to the fight against the disease.
Educational film: Preventing, detecting and treating malaria
Our malaria films have already been deployed in areas with a high risk of malaria transmission.
Working with the Ministry of Health in Zimbabwe alongside Econet Wireless, we created 3 free to access health education films on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of malaria.
Available in English, Shona and Ndbele the animated films were made accessible without data charges and created for use on mobile phones. These resources have been delivering vital information to Village Health Workers and community members across the country since 2016.
These malaria resources are also being used in other community outreach education projects, with research finding our films to be effective in the delivery of key health messages:
Trainees showed an average 44% improvement in knowledge and practice after watching our films about nutrition, family planning and malaria prevention.
Medical Aid Films’ Empower Tanzania programme – training Maasai women to become Community Health Educators
Child health: understanding signs of malaria
As well as our suite of animated films on the prevention, detection and treatment of malaria, one of our earlier trio of films on child health demonstrated the important signs and symptoms to look for in a sick child, with a focus on malaria.
Available online, these films have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in scores of countries spread across the world. Aiming to improve health worker knowledge and practice, our films are free to access, downloadable and in multiple languages.
Child Health: Understanding signs of malaria is available in English, French, Swahili, and Somali with a recent addition of an Acholi language version.
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Footnotes
1. World malaria report, 2018. World Health Organisation
2. Key Messages – World Malaria Day 2019, WHO website
