On World Malaria Day we mark successes in the fight against malaria, highlight the responsibility we all have to end malaria within a generation and urge leaders to step up the fight and get us closer to a malaria-free world.
This year COVID-19 is threatening that progress and now more than ever we need to call on leaders to act.
URGENT ACTION IS CRITICAL TO SAVE LIVES
Over the past two decades we’ve made great progress in the malaria fight, saving more than 7 million lives and preventing over 1 billion malaria cases. However, as long as malaria exists, it threatens the poorest and most vulnerable, and has the potential to resurge in times of public health crises – like the threat of COVID-19 the one facing us now.
As the world grapples with COVID-19, this World Malaria Day will also highlight the importance of maintaining robust health systems to prevent existing diseases like malaria, alongside emerging ones. COVID-19 is straining national health systems and challenging families, communities and countries. By holding leaders and ourselves accountable to their commitments to end malaria, we will continue strengthening resilient health and surveillance systems to help us respond to emerging diseases while also protecting and advancing hard-fought progress against malaria, a long-standing deadly and dangerous foe.
Severe disruptions in insecticide treated mosquito net campaigns and in access to antimalarials due to COVID-19 could lead to a surge in malaria cases and a doubling of malaria deaths this year, increasing the burden on challenged health systems, according to a new modelling analysis by WHO, in close collaboration with partners including PATH, the Malaria Atlas Project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Countries must move fast and distribute malaria prevention and treatment tools in this relatively early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in sub-Saharan Africa and do their utmost to safely maintain these essential malaria control services. Acting now, before the rainy season, will save lives and prevent a surge in malaria cases that will overburden challenged health systems.
Sustaining investments in the malaria fight could save hundreds of thousands of lives – especially children under 5 and pregnant women who are most at risk – and protect health systems, which are our primary line of defence against existing diseases like malaria and emerging health threats like COVID-19.
IT STARTS WITH YOU
The theme of World Malaria Day 2020 — Zero Malaria Starts with Me — is a movement dedicated to driving action and making change, and this starts with YOU! Get your leaders to take action using the resources available at zeromalaria.africa
ABOUT THIS TOOLKIT
This advocacy and communications toolkit has been designed to support your communications activities this World Malaria Day, and contains materials and resources which can be used in the run up to and during World Malaria Day on 25 April 2020.
Everyone – from global leaders, NGOS, academics and civil society organisations to journalists, teachers and health workers - is invited to use this toolkit to spread the word this World Malaria Day and join the Zero Malaria Starts with Me movement.
The toolkit includes:
SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
Share these posts on your social media channels to get more people to join the Zero Malaria Starts With Me movement:
The world's poorest and most marginalised people are hardest hit by malaria, and they are also likely to be the most affected by #COVID19. This #WorldMalariaDay we are reminded of the importance of building secure health systems to defend against disease. 🏥 #HealthForAll
This #WorldMalariaDay, countries must safely maintain malaria control programs 🦟 in the face of #COVID19 and act fast before the rainy season 🌧️ to distribute lifesaving malaria tools, to save thousands of lives and prevent malaria cases overburdening challenged health systems 🏥
We are in the middle of a global health crisis. Now more than ever, it's time to call on governments to ensure we have strong health systems in place to protect against existing diseases like malaria and emerging ones like #COVID19, and secure #HealthForAll. 🏥🩺 #WorldMalariaDay #endmalaria
This #WorldMalariaDay, we urge leaders to sustain and increase their investments to #endmalaria which prevent almost 100m cases and save nearly 600k lives each year, including the most vulnerable – pregnant women and children 🤰🏿 👶🏾 #ZeroMalariaStartswithMe
#DYK investing to #endmalaria increases the capacity of health workers 👩🏾⚕️ 👨🏽⚕️and helps build more resilient health systems 🏥? This #WorldMalariaDay we call on global leaders to strengthen our first line of defence against disease #ZeroMalariaStartswithMe
Sustained global investment to #endmalaria prevents almost 100m cases of #malaria and saves nearly 600k lives each year! 🙌🏽 🙌 We must close the $2bn annual funding gap to reach the most vulnerable people with the life-saving malaria interventions they need. 📈 #WorldMalariaDay
We can be the generation to #endmalaria. This #WorldMalariaDay join me to declare #ZeroMalariaStartswithMe 💪 💪🏿 and learn more about the global movement 🌍 recognising our power and responsibility to ensure no one dies from a mosquito bite 🦟 at zeromalaria.africa
SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
#DYK more countries than ever are closer to eliminating #malaria? This #WorldMalariaDay we urge global leaders to make targeted investments 🎯 to propel regions like the Americas and countries on the verge of elimination to #endmalaria! #ZeroMalariaStartswithMe
Malaria is an unfair disease that still puts half the world at risk. Pregnant women and children 🤰🏿 👶🏾 in sub-Saharan Africa suffer the most. On #WorldMalariaDay we must take a stand against this deadly disease to create a #ZeroMalaria world in a generation. #ZeroMalariaStartsWithMe
This #WorldMalariaDay ask our world leaders to power innovation 💡 so we can develop better ways to fight this deadly disease and be the generation to #endmalaria. ✊ ✊🏽 ✊🏿 #ZeroMalariaStartsWithMe
World leaders must champion our malaria researchers and scientists 🔬 who every day bring us one step closer to a #ZeroMalaria world. 👏 👏🏼 👏🏿 New tools for prevention, as well as early diagnosis and treatment of malaria can help us fight back. #WorldMalariaDay #ZeroMalariaStartsWithMe
Malaria continues to fight back and steal our futures. 🦟 But this #WorldMalariaDay I’m asking you to take a stand to demand action and investment from our world leaders to #endmalaria once and for all ✊ ✊🏽 ✊🏿 #ZeroMalariaStartsWithMe
#WORLDMALARIADAY
#ZEROMALARIASTARTSWITHME
#ENDMALARIA
KEY MESSAGES
Since 2000 global efforts have dramatically reduced the global malaria burden thanks to increased financial and political commitment from countries worldwide enabling the scale up of effective interventions and better data.
- Today, more countries than ever are close to elimination and fewer communities live in fear of a mosquito bite.
- But the fight is far from over. Malaria, a disease of poverty and inequity, still affects half the world – with pregnant women and children under five in sub-Saharan Africa bearing the heaviest burden of disease.
- As the world struggles to respond to COVID-19, there is a significant risk that prevention and treatment programs for malaria will be disrupted.
This World Malaria Day, the global malaria community unites to mark the positive impact that global commitments to end malaria are having every year and to call for stepped up action to accelerate progress toward ending malaria within a generation.
- In 2018, these investments saved almost 600,000 lives and prevented nearly 100 million malaria cases compared to 2000 levels.
- Global investments in ending malaria also strengthen health systems that are critical to preventing, detecting and treating the most vulnerable populations at risk of malaria, as well as responding to new outbreaks like COVID-19.
The global theme for World Malaria Day, ‘Zero Malaria Starts with Me’, emphasizes the power and responsibility – no matter where we live – to ensure no one dies from a mosquito bite. It engages and enables political decision-makers, the private sector, civil society, the academic community and the public to take actions that will protect families, communities and countries and achieve a malaria-free world.
By ending malaria, we will save millions of lives, build resilient health and surveillance systems and create a healthier, more equitable future that leaves no one behind.
WORLD MALARIA DAY: CALLS TO ACTION
This World Malaria Day, support us to emphasize the power and responsibility – no matter where we live – to ensure no one dies from a mosquito bite, as we call on everyone to be accountable in the fight against malaria
- Invest in robust health and surveillance systems and sustaining malaria prevention and control interventions to help ensure millions of the most vulnerable are protected from malaria and new diseases like COVID-19.
- We must close the $2 billion annual gap in malaria funding to develop transformative tools and reach the most vulnerable people with the life-saving malaria interventions they need.
- We can significantly improve maternal health and child survival by increasing access to life saving tools for the millions of pregnant women and children still at risk of malaria.
- Invest in the development and scale up of innovative tools and technologies to help us beat malaria and the mosquito that carries it.
- More countries than ever are closer to eliminating malaria. Targeted investments to fill gaps in malaria programming can propel regions like the Americas and countries on the verge of elimination to reach their goal of zero malaria.
- Be the generation that ends malaria. Learn more and join us to hold global leaders accountable to their commitments at zeromalaria.africa
(Photo Credit: Malaria No More / Aurelie Marrier d'Unienville)
COVID-19: CALLS TO ACTION
- In the face of COVID-19, countries must move fast and distribute malaria prevention and treatment tools in this relatively early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in sub-Saharan Africa and do their utmost to safely maintain these essential malaria control services.
- Acting now, before the rainy season, will save lives and prevent a surge in malaria cases that will overburden challenged health systems.
- Sustaining investments in the malaria fight could save hundreds of thousands of lives – especially children under 5 and pregnant women who are most at risk – and protect health systems, which are our primary line of defence against existing diseases like malaria and emerging health threats like COVID-19.
This World Malaria Day, download further talking points on COVID-19 and malaria below, and refer to the World Health Organization Q&A for further information.
#WORLDMALARIADAY
#ZEROMALARIASTARTSWITHME
#ENDMALARIA
CONTACT
We would love to know about all your World Malaria Day activities and help to support and share these far and wide. Please get in touch with the RBM Partnership to End Malaria to share any virtual events, campaigns or social media activities you have planned for this World Malaria Day.
If you have any questions about World Malaria Day or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact the RBM Partnership to End Malaria communications team.
- Press Office: RBMPartnership@grayling.com
- RBM Partnership to End Malaria: info@endmalaria.org
For more information about the global fight to end malaria, visit endmalaria.org and who.int/malaria.
