Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire-  A new shipment of malaria treatment drugs  will soon be publicly distributed in the West African nation of  Côte d’Ivoire.  On Thursday, November 8th,  the U.S. Embassy in  Côte d’Ivoire, Chargé d'Affaires,  Katherine Brucker and USAID/West Africa Regional Mission Director, Daniel Moore handed over the first delivery of malaria treatment drugs to the Ivorian government at an official ceremony at the Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene.  This shipment of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) drugs is the first of the 1.2 million treatments that the United States President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) is procuring for Côte d’Ivoire.  

When PMI was launched in 2005, the goal of the Initiative was to reduce malaria-related mortality by 50 percent across 15 high-burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa through a rapid scale-up of four proven and highly effective malaria prevention and treatment measures: insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs); indoor residual spraying (IRS); accurate diagnosis and prompt treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs); and intermittent preventive treatment of pregnant women (IPTp).  The PMI’s Strategy for 2015–2020 takes into account the progress made over the past decade and the new challenges that have arisen. Malaria prevention and control remains a major U.S. foreign assistance objective and PMI's Strategy fully aligns with the U.S. government's vision of ending preventable child and maternal deaths and ending extreme poverty. It is also in line with the goals articulated in the Roll Back Malaria Partnership’s Action and Investment to Defeat Malaria 2016–2030 and World Health Organization's Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030. Under the PMI Strategy for 2015–2020, the U.S. government's goal is to work with PMI-supported countries and partners to further reduce malaria deaths and substantially decrease malaria morbidity, towards the long-term goal of elimination. In FY 2017, thanks to increased funding for PMI from the U.S. Congress, PMI announced plans for a five-country expansion adding programs in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Sierra Leone, which increased PMI’s reach to 24 malaria-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including those with the highest burden, and three programs in the Greater Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia.

For more information about President’s Malaria Initiative, please visit the PMI website.