China has made remarkable progress fighting malaria in recent decades and now aims to eliminate the disease by 2030. This ambitious agenda reflects China’s willingness to use the full range of tools available for fighting malaria, including the support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Rather than hindering the program, NGOs have played an important role in supporting the elimination effort through financial resources, technical support, advocacy, and community engagement. This paper describes how NGOs are underpinning China’s elimination goals and contributing to malaria elimination efforts.
The Malaria Challenge in China
China has suffered from malaria for many hundreds of years as a persistent public health pestilence, but huge control efforts, with accompanying mega-government programs, have seen it decimated in recent years: according to the latest reporting, malaria incidence is down to extremely low levels, although the final aim is to be free of malaria altogether.
China’s malaria elimination strategy involves several key components:
- Surveillance: Monitoring and tracking malaria cases to ensure timely interventions.
- Vector Control: interventions like mosquito netting or insecticide spraying that reduce the mosquito population.
- Diagnosis and Treatment: Ensuring accurate and prompt diagnosis and treatment with effective antimalarial drugs.
- Community Engagement: Raising awareness and involving communities in malaria prevention efforts.
These extremely comprehensive approaches have moved along well, but many problems are still concentrated in remote and border areas where NGOs have become invaluable partners.
Key Roles of NGOs in Malaria Elimination
Funding and Resource Allocation
One of the most make a difference is through financial contributions. Implementations of malaria control and elimination programs require extensive investment in financial, human, and physical capital for infrastructure, research and development, and community health. NGOs bridge the financial gap by filling in the void of resources otherwise potentially missing from otherwise effective and well-intentioned programs.
In the case of malaria control in China, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, along with the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, have allocated substantial financial resources to support everything from the purchase of insecticide-treated nets to research into new antimalarial drugs.
Technical Expertise and Research
At the same time, by bringing expertise, financial resources, and global links to local health authorities, NGOs are vital contributors to malaria elimination. Working alongside local authorities to compile and evaluate the efficacy of tools such as advanced diagnostics, treatment protocols, and vector control methods, they also contribute to research in identifying innovation and new technologies capable of contributing to control.
Organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) MSF) or the World Health Organization (WHO) can also offer technical assistance as well as research to improve treatment and prevention. They can train and develop the skills of local health workers, as research from Tanzania has shown.
Advocacy and Awareness Campaigns
The levels of malaria incidents can be reduced by informing people about how to avoid infestation and what kind of treatment can be received against malaria.
NGOs are very vital when it comes to advocacy and public education about malaria because they can pass information to people about any malaria symptoms or how to prevent infestation and also about the treatment of malaria.
Media campaigns, community workshops, and training materials lead to a greater understanding of malaria as well as support from residents in controlling it, all apparently through the efforts of NGOs.
Community-Based Interventions
Communities must actively participate for meaningful malaria control. Effective measures rely on strong communal involvement, with non-governmental organizations collaborating with local communities to implement and maintain malaria control strategies. Community-based interventions (CBIs) include the distribution of bed nets treated with insecticide; the organization of bed net usage campaigns; and the setting up of local malaria treatment centers.
Community-based programs set up by NGOs such as the Malaria Consortium UK and the American Red Cross directly engage vulnerable populations, with targeted services and support, focussing on high-risk areas. These interventions reach the marginalized.
Cross-Border Collaboration
Cross-border transmission poses a challenge for China’s malaria elimination efforts, too. There are areas along China’s borders, especially with its neighbors in Southeast Asia, where malaria still circulates. It is here that NGOs contribute most to cross-border collaboration and coordination.
For example, the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network (APMEN), which Maxwell directs from Mahidol University in Thailand, strengthens collaborative efforts toward regional malaria control and elimination. It facilitates cross-border surveillance and response and promotes joint malaria control efforts. In 2015, one species, P falciparum, still accounted for 84 percent of malaria cases and 89 percent of malaria deaths.
Impact of NGO Support
These include how NGOs became players in China’s malaria elimination and what that involvement has accomplished. Overall, I believe that the presence of NGOs in China’s malaria elimination efforts has brought about some positive results. To illustrate the answer in detail, the advantages and disadvantages of NGOs’ involvement will be illustrated with two reasons, but first I shall outline the question. In my opinion, although some dissenters blame NGOs for interfering with the Chinese government’s work, NGOs’ participation can be largely beneficial to the mainstay in eliminating malaria. To begin with, one of the reasons supporting my answer is that external funding from international NGOs plays a vital role in the success of the malaria-elimination policy. As well as providing over 50 million dollars in financial support, NGOs bring their unique staffing methods to the campaign.
- Increased Resource Availability: funds from NGOs provided support for resources and universal malaria control programs.
- Enhanced Technical Expertise: An increased capacity of the NGO’s technical expertise has resulted in better diagnostic tools and better treatment protocols and vector-control strategies.
- Higher levels of public awareness: Awareness of malaria prevention and treatment and campaign engagement from the community.
- Improved Engagement in Community: Active participation within the community helps to foster a sense of ownership and has proven effective with community-led malaria prevention and control efforts.
- Efficient Cross-Border Collaboration: regional cooperation by NGOs can build up sustained prevention in border areas, allowing for wider elimination objectives.
Case Studies of NGO Contributions
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
The Global Fund, by providing the single largest financial backing to malaria control in China, helped to place more than 100 million insecticide-treated nets, support research and development of new antimalarial drugs, and back training programs for health workers. Credit the Global Fund with the growth of the number of Chinese people free of malaria infection, and the anticipated elimination of malaria from China by 2015.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Gates Foundation has provided support for new tools and drugs in malaria research and innovation, helping to improve the effectiveness of malaria control measures, providing support for programs to increase access to malaria prevention and treatment services, and more.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
While MSF treats people in areas with intense malaria transmission, it is its ‘push’ approach, such as mobile clinics, widespread medication distribution, and education on how to prevent malaria, that is providing pivotal complements to official national programs in some of the poorest and remote areas in the world – some that national governments even struggle to reach. That MSF leads the way in some areas has been a salient reminder on the frontlines that neglected diseases are not being forgotten.
The role of NGOs in China’s malaria elimination agenda can be seen in four key ways. First is funding; second is technical assistance; third is advocacy; and, finally, NGOs play a role in reaching vulnerable populations, coordinating cross-border collaborations, and more. Without NGO support, malaria control in China would be more difficult, and the last remaining challenge of malaria elimination that much harder to address.
However, with the end of malaria in sight and China moving towards elimination by 2030, their work is still crucial. Without their contributions, mosquito nets would not be bought, innovative tools would be slower to come, and communities would be left without a voice. With the Chinese government onboard and NGOs continuing to support their work, I am hopeful that a malaria-free China is attainable.
Understanding the value that NGOs have played and will continue to play in playing the lead role of a partner of last resort in malaria elimination could facilitate our support for their central part in this endeavor and in making concerted, continuous investments in these critical partnerships. In building a world free of malaria, NGOs will continue as a key means to reach this important public health milestone.
