United States Helps Protect 200,000 Ivoirians Against Malaria
From August 2 to September 4, 2021 the U.S. government will support the Ivorian Government to conduct the second Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) campaign against malaria in Côte d’Ivoire. As part of the National Malaria Strategic Plan, the campaign will spray nearly 60,000 houses, reaching 200,000 residents, including pregnant women and children under five, the subgroups most vulnerable to malaria.
“The primary goal of U.S anti-malaria assistance is to save lives, but these initiatives also lead to a number of secondary benefits like improving education and economic productivity,” said Joann Lockard, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan. “Healthy citizens can go to school, work, and use more of their financial resources to invest in small businesses when healthcare expenses are reduced. These are all reasons that the United States is proud to renew its support for Ivoirian efforts to fight malaria and other diseases.”
U.S. support for the campaign is provided through the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented jointly with the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC). Côte d’Ivoire’s National Malaria Strategic Plan emphasizes IRS as one strategy to reduce people’s risk of contracting malaria.
Since 2017, USAID has invested $100 million in Côte d’Ivoire to prevent, detect, and treat malaria. That support includes provision of 5.2 million bed nets, 8.2 million malaria diagnostic tests and treatment courses, as well as Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) training for 8,300 healthcare workers.