APMEN II Meetings
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 12:00PM The 2nd APMEN Technical and Associated Meetings were held from the 14th - 19th of February in Kandy, Sri Lanka.
The meeting involved a Technical Meeting as well as satellite meetings of the Vivax Working Group, Vector Control Working Group, APMEN Advisory Panel and APMEN Business Meeting, with the working group meetings held in Colombo and the other meetings in Kandy. It was opened by the Hon. Nimal Siripala de Silva, Minister of Healthcare and Nutrition, Sri Lanka with an inspiring speech conveying the government's commitment and understanding that this is no short term endeavour. The meeting received good press coverage in Sri Lanka. In addition a study tour was conducted on the 16th of February to malaria programs in Sri Lanka.
The main meeting was preceded by meetings of the vivax and vector control working groups; both groups developed a work plan that focuses on building of the evidence base. Sri Lanka's Minister of Health opened the main meeting
More than 60 members from nine of the ten country programs attended, including the Australian Army Malaria Institute, Philippines National Institute of Medical Research, PNG Institute of Medical Research, Burnett Institute, Menzies School of Health Research, Karolinksa Institute, Eijkman-Oxford Clinical Research Unit (Indonesia), China National Institute of Parasitic Diseases and other major partners including the Roll Back Malaria Programme and the Global Malaria Programme (Geneva), Malaria Atlas Project, South East Asian and Western Pacific Regional Offices of WHO, and the Malaria Elimination Group.
The technical meetings focused on:
1. Issues of progress towards elimination in Bhutan, Thailand and Goa State in India;
2. A case study of the progressive programme of control to almost elimination of malaria in Sri Lanka,
3. Mapping the international limits and population at risk of Plasmodium vivax transmission,
4. Priority operational research issues for elimination from the P. Vivax and vector control perspectives,
5. Imported Malaria and Cross Border issues,
6. Strategic Planning for Malaria Elimination,
7. Surveillance - From Passive to Active Case Detection - Fundamentals and Technical Advances, and
8. Community participation in reaching and maintaining elimination.
One afternoon served as the "Business Meeting" where the Country partners and Participating Institutions reviewed APMEN's governance structure, reviewed and amended the 2010 Work Plan and received a progress report on the Inception Phase of APMEN. On the Friday afternoon, the first meeting of APMEN Advisory Board, was held.
APMEN would like to thank the Sri Lankan organizing team ( Dr Rabindra Abeyasinghe and Dr Gawrie Galappaththy and their staff), UQ team (Kim Wicks, Alison Manley, Jillian Ridley, Neville Smith) and GHG staff (Cara Smith Gueye, Angela Ni, and Michelle Hsiang) for their support to the smooth running of this important set of meetings in Sri Lanka.
