Goals

Goals:
- to establish Centres of Excellence in each country where malaria is endemic;

- to train local people to implement their own successful operational Integrated Vector Management programs;
- to significantly minimize the number of adult mosquitoes towards creating vector free zones at the community level;

Thereby, significantly reducing the transmission of malaria and the impact of the disease within communities.

FAQs

QUESTION
Amanda Asks: What is Vector Management?

RESPONSE
This is a basic and an important question. I’ll provide a short answer in the form of definitions. For those medical entomologists out there, this will not be a comprehensive treatise.

Definition: A Vector is an organism that transmits a disease.

Definition:  Vector Management is the control of the vector of a disease. Control does not necessarily mean elimination of the vector. It is the reduction of a vector population to below the threshold above which medical intervention is required to minimize the incidence of a disease.  I am a proponent of Integrated Vector Management or IVM.

Definition:  Integrated Vector Management is the use of several monitoring methods along with a combination of environmentally appropriate and effective control methods to reduce a vector population.

When we mention vector and disease and control together, we are really discussing disease management, in the case of malaria ….Malaria Management.  Malaria is complex disease occurring primarily in equatorial and sub-equatorial regions of the world and the solutions to its abatement are equally complex. There is not a cost-effective “silver bullet” and a significant reduction in the deaths and illness due to malaria will only be achieved by a flexible integrated approach that will vary with circumstance; that is … the approach will change under different situations.

Definition: Integrated Malaria Management is the combination of methods for monitoring the disease along with prophylactic & curative treatments and integrated vector management.