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National Malaria Elimination Program (NMEP) is one of the programs under the Disease Prevention and Control Directorate responsible for designing, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of malaria-related interventions and activities in Ethiopia.
Roles and Responsibilities Of The NMEP
- Designing anti-malarial interventions,
- Development of technical guidelines, manuals, protocols, SOPs, and funding proposals, and building capacity of the sub-national program units and staff.
- Monitoring of the efficacy of anti-malarial drugs and effectiveness of insecticides In collaboration with research institutes
- Measurement of the impact of interventions
Programs, projects, and initiatives
- NMEP developed a five-year national strategic plan for 2021-2025 with the overall aim of consolidating the gains made in the fight against malaria and further reduce the burden of the disease and interrupt transmission of malaria in some areas. It has two goals:
- By 2025, reduce malaria morbidity and mortality by 50 percent from the baseline of 2020.
- By 2025, achieve zero indigenous malaria in districts with annual parasite incidence less than 10 and prevent reintroduction of malaria in districts reporting zero indigenous malaria cases.
The program also had launched sub-national malaria elimination in 2017 and planning to expand the elimination program to all malarious areas of the country endeavoring zero indigenous malaria in the country by 2030. Towards this, new interventions like malaria case notification, investigation, classification, and response and malaria foci investigation, classification, and response have been recently started.
Program Milestone
- By 2025, achieve adoption of appropriate behavior and practices towards antimalarial interventions by 85% of households living in malaria-endemic areas.
- By 2021 and beyond, conduct confirmatory testing for 100% of suspected malaria cases and treat all confirmed cases according to the national guidelines.
- By 2021 and beyond, cover 100% of the population at risk of malaria with one type of globally recommended vector control intervention.
- By 2021 and beyond, conduct cases or foci investigation, classification, and response in districts currently having API less than 10 and prevent reintroduction of malaria into areas reporting zero indigenous malaria cases.
- By 2021 and beyond, generate 100% evidence that facilitates appropriate decision-making.
- By 2021 and beyond, build the capacity of all levels of the health offices to coordinate and implement malaria elimination interventions.