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Opening Ceremony

2 Nov 2009

Patrick Adams

Source: TropIKA

Jambo!

Greetings from Nairobi, where the 5th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan-African Malaria Conference is now officially underway.

Welcoming more than 2,000 attendees to the world’s largest meeting on malaria, the honorable Kalonzo Musyoka, Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs and National Heritage of the Republic of Kenya, kicked off the week’s events with an impassioned opening address at Kenyatta International Conference Center. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “research is key to helping the African continent find interventions to the malaria problem…and African scientists are playing a leading role in that research.”

Joining him at the podium was a distinguished panel of African public health experts, including the honorable Beth Mugo, Kenyan Minister of Public Health and Sanitation; Mr. Mark Bor, Permanent Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation; Professor Francine Ntoumi, MIM Secretariat Coordinator; Professor Wen Kilama, Managing Trustee of the African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET); and Dr. Solomon Mpoke, acting director of the Kenyan Medical Research Institute (KEMRI).

The theme of this year’s conference, “Bridging Knowledge for Action,” was a refrain throughout the night, as speaker after speaker called for greater collaboration in all aspects of malaria prevention, treatment and control. “We may disagree on the right techniques or the best approach,” said Mr. Bor. “But at the end of the day, we agree on the problem, and together we declare war on malaria.”

At the front lines of that war are organizations like AMANET, the first African institution to be elected host of the MIM secretariat in 2006. “I have personally participated in all MIM conferences and I have seen it grow over time.” said Professor Kilama. “At the first MIM conference in 1997 there were some 100 African scientists in attendance. Today, African scientists constitute the overwhelming majority of researchers. And on top of that, African researchers are in the driver’s seat; they are driving MIM toward greater strength.” he added

KEMRI, too, has a long history of battling malaria, said Dr. Mpoke. It was thanks to KEMRI research establishing parasite resistance to chloroquine that the former front-line drug was removed from shelves in Kenya, he said. And today KEMRI researchers represent Kenya as one of 8 countries participating in clinical trials of the promising RTS,S vaccine, now entering Phase III.

“Here in Kenya, our goal is to eliminate malaria by 2017,” said the Honorable Beth Mugo. “Health systems strengthening, the development of effective medicines, human resources capacity building and more will be necessary to achieve this. The international community must take moral responsibility of ensuring that funding levels for the control of malaria in Africa are maintained and improved. But unless we work together, making sure that actions are shared and funding levels are equal, we will not eradicate malaria in a single country; the mosquitoes know no borders.”

Recalling his own bout with the disease as a young child, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka called it “a challenge to all Africans” to bequeath to their children a continent free of the disease. “This conference should be proud that African researchers are leading the initiative to develop a malaria vaccine. It is both my pleasure and my duty to declare this conference open and to wish you fruitful negotiations.”

Asante Sana!

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