PESHAWAR, Sept 2: A three-day cross-border meeting on malaria concluded with a decision of establishing Border Coordination Committees (BCC) with its members drawn from the border districts for the execution of anti-malaria plan in the border areas of all three countries.
"The BCC would be responsible for the prevention of malaria in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan through its bordering areas," said Dr Quaid Saeed WHO's Peshawar-based Emergency Medical Officer at the conclusion of the meeting here on Thursday.
This second cross-border meeting organized by the WHO was in continuation of the first meeting held in Tehran in July 2003, was attended by health professionals from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and WHO representatives from Cairo, Switzerland, Islamabad and Peshawar.
The BCC was assigned the task of developing a protocol for early detection of epidemic in the bordering districts through data- collecting tools on weekly basis, hold common training workshops in these districts and share information with other member countries in case the epidemic breaks out in their area.
Besides, the BCC members were also asked to establish a technical committee for monitoring and evaluation at national and provincial levels to select common indicators causing malaria in these areas.
All documents containing strategies, drug policies and treatment guidelines and training modules to be planned out and later shared between three countries, was another task assigned to BCC members in the concluding session of the conference?
In the light of information collected during the three days, this was agreed that sentinel sites for monitoring drug efficacy have already been established in some bordering districts of Iran including Chabahar, Sarbaz and Iranshahar and the province of Nangarhar from Afghanistan. In Pakistan the exercise would be completed by end of 2004.
The participants agreed that procurement and maintenance of emergency stocks of insecticides and other essential equipment were problems not only in the three countries but also in most parts of under developed world.
Much emphasis was laid on Afghanistan, where the delegates from that country said: "Everything was in shambles," stressing that there should be control programmes supposed to focus, forecast and chalk out the needs timely.
In this regard WHO and other agencies like Unicef were asked to initiate and explore the feasibility of maintaining stocks with partners such as the Disaster Resource Network, which already has a warehouse in Dubai.
All the participants unanimously underlined the importance of capacity building and this was decided that with the assistance of WHO some training materials related to malaria should be produced and distributed among member countries.
Besides, it was agreed to continue training and refreshing courses on malaria and its control. They also agreed to observe May 15 each year as Malaria Day in all three countries to raise the level of awareness among the people.
