Shaping the Fight Against Malaria Through Participation in Policy Making

March 18, 2022

This week’s Fist Bump goes to VectorLink Malawi and their IEC Coordinator, Patricia Chirombo, for representing PMI VectorLink in a five-day meeting to develop a new malaria communication strategy for the 2022-2026 period in Malawi with the NMCP and other key stakeholders including Breakthrough ACTION and World Vision.

While the new strategy is a work in progress, its purpose is to provide the framework, guiding principles, and key elements of malaria social and behavior change communication (SBCC) interventions. SBCC is an important strategy to address IRS hesitancy, and reach populations that may not accept IRS to begin with. Using tools such as mass media, print, and radio; community mobilization; and working with District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) who are local policy officials, many of the concerns surrounding IRS can be alleviated through SBCC strategies.

Participants were grouped based on their work such as case management, malaria in Pregnancy-Intermittent Prophylactic Therapy (IPTp), IRS, and ITNs to discuss and develop the relevant sections of the strategy. PMI VectorLink Malawi, World Vision, and other SBCC participants from DHMTs formed the IRS group.

The Malawi Malaria Behavior Survey (MBS) and the Malawi Malaria Indicator Survey (MMIS) for 2021 were used as reference materials. Since these two surveys did not include any IRS-related behaviors as data points, VectorLink Malawi advocated to use the end-of-spray progress reports from the PMI VectorLink and Global Fund districts as additional references to make sure IRS and other vector control interventions are represented in the 2022 – 2026 Malawi Malaria Communication Strategy documents. The NMCP and the rest of the participants agreed. These documents generated a more comprehensive national picture on IRS acceptance and other behavior changes toward IRS.

Excellent work advocating for vector control to be extensively covered in the next Malawi Malaria Communication Strategy, Patricia!