Awash Teklehaimanot

Breaking the Bottlenecks in Malaria Control, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda: In 2005, facing little progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations in its World Summit endorsed the Quick Impact Initiative for Malaria, aimed to rapidly scaling-up existing control interventions to accelerate progress towards MDG 6: halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria. The Breaking the Bottlenecks Project (BTB) was conceived to provide extensive in-country support and advise to at least ten malaria endemic countries to scale-up their malaria control programs and achieve a quick impact on malaria by 2008. Between 2005 and 2008, a group of experts worked with countries in mobilizing resources for malaria control through the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), assessing needs and gaps in funding, planning national control programs and identifying and responding to bottlenecks to program implementation. In 2007-2008, BTB supported countries secured almost $1.6 billion over a five-year period to fund their national malaria control programs.

Health Extension Program, Ethiopia: The Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia (CNHDE) is a project of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. CNHDE is contributing to build Ethiopia's capacity to deliver health services and improve their quality, as well as to help monitor and evaluate progress and overall performance of the Ministry of Health's Health Extension Program (HEP). HEP was created in 2004 to increase access and equity of essential health care services for the under-served rural population in the country. It is based on the provision of basic health promotion and disease prevention through community-based health extension workers. CNHDE supported the development of the curriculum and educational materials for training the health extension workers, developed survey tools and instruments to collect health information among the rural population, and has conducted a national baseline survey and a three-year follow-up survey, as well as an evaluation of the training and working conditions of the health extension workers.

Control of Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases in the Millennium Villages: The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was started in 2004 to demonstrate that the Millennium Development Goals are attainable in even the most challenging agro-ecological settings with low-cost, cross-sectoral and community-driven interventions. Seventy nine villages and about 500,000 people are part of it in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. The Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia (CNHDE)developed the strategy for malaria control in the MVP based on universal coverage of the population at risk with preventive and therapeutic measures, with free, mass distribution of Long-lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN), together with availability of free treatment with Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACT), implemented by governmental health facilities. In areas of high transmission, Intermittent Preventive Therapy (IPT) is administered by local health resources to pregnant women as part of antenatal care. Currently Community Health Workers trained to diagnose with Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) and treat with ACTs support community-based case management.