HOUSE OF THE WEEK
An abundance of space at FMI City
CERTAINLY, space is not a problem in this house – once you get there. Over the Hlaing River, 45 minutes from downtown, there is a large one-storey house in a big compound waiting for someone ready to trade time for space. ...moreMalaria fight gets funding injection
GOVERNMENT doctors are set to get a boost in their efforts to combat malaria thanks to a US$3.8 million grant from the Global Fund.
The money will enable the Quality Diagnosis and Standard Treatment of Malaria project (QDSTM), under the Myanmar Medical Association (MMA), to increase its presence across the country from 170 clinics in 60 townships to 385 clinics in 115 townships, said project president Dr Chit Soe, who is also president of the MMA’s internal medicine society. The funding, which should be distributed by 2011, will also make it possible to improve doctors’ training and public education, he said.
“We are not sure whether the patron organisation that will manage the money for the project is the United Nations or Save the Children, but we are now preparing for it,” Dr Chit Soe said.
The MMA has trained 163 general practitioners in its project areas since 2006, emphasising the need for quality diagnosis and the standard treatment of malaria, he said.
During the project’s eight-year history, the fight against malaria here has benefited from ever-increasing public awareness, he said.
“We aimed to reduce the disease by 50 percent within 10 years, and we can reduce it by nearly 30pc within eight years, according to our survey. But it is hard to know the countrywide results because there are some places that are inaccessible, such as [near] the Chin border.”
All the project’s clinics are outside Yangon, he added. Under the program, the association opened malaria clinics in the countryside and distributed malaria-related information among the local population, as well as mosquito nets. Mobile health teams visit villages two or three times a week.
The worst-affected region for malaria is Kayah State, where most of the population faces the threat of the disease, he said.
The MMA launched the QDSTM project in 2002 with help from the Global Fund. When the Global Fund terminated $98 million in grants to Myanmar in 2005 the program was continued with the support of the Three Diseases Fund, which also combats HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
In November, the Global Fund approved all three of Myanmar’s Round Nine proposals, paving the way for up to $110 million in funding to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria over the next two years.
