Accra, June 18, GNA - The first international course on malaria and planning its control opened in Accra on Monday to equip health personnel with current technical and managerial skills on policies, strategies and tools to effectively scale up malaria control interventions. Prof. Edwin Afari, Course Coordinator, in his welcoming address, said the training would also facilitate the achievement of the Roll Back Malaria programme and further propel efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goal's (MDG) targets on health.

About 30 participants from Anglophone countries made up of Ghana, The Gambia, Namibia, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Zambia are participating in the 42-day course jointly organized by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ministry of Health, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) and the University of Ghana.

Prof. Afari explained that the WHO in collaboration with its partners started the capacity building programme in 1980 in English-speaking countries in the African Region. In mid-1990s, it was extended it to the French speaking countries and extended in 2000 Mozambique for the Portuguese-speaking countries. Prof. Alex Nyarko, Director, NMIMR, urged participants to embrace the opportunity with much commitment so that they could come out with timely interventions to manage the current trend of malaria in their respective countries.

He said the NMIMR and the University of Ghana had the requisite facilities to support the programme and would do all they could to assist participants carry out researches and secure information to make the programme a success.

Prof. Nyarko said looking at the current trend of malaria in Africa, it was important that quality research be made an integral part of malaria control interventions to help reduce the disease burden among Anglophone countries.

Dr Joaquim Sewaka, WHO Country Representative, called for the strengthening of government collaboration with the private sector as well as with non-governmental organisations working on malaria control to help scale-up malaria control interventions.