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Joseph Madzimure-Senior Reporter

SADC member states are assessing progress made so far towards eradicating malaria by 2030.

The health technical team from the region is in the country attending a week-long SADC Malaria Report validation meeting.

Three countries —  Lesotho, Madagascar and Seychelles — out of 16 in the SADC region, are now free from malaria.

SADC Malaria Coordinator Dr Joseph Mberi has confirmed the development saying they are consolidating ways of eradicating malaria in the region by 2030 after registering a milestone in containing the disease over the years.

“We are having a SADC malaria technical meeting to come up with agenda items for the health ministers which will be held in November.

“As you are aware, Zimbabwe is taking over the SADC chairmanship, so the health issues of the region will also be tabled and discussed in Zimbabwe starting with the technical committee meeting that involves our partners, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM), and various international implementers and funders,” said Dr Mberi.

“As we do that, we produce an Annual Malaria Report which will be tabled to the ministers annually. Then also from it some appropriate policy issues are then taken up to the summit for support and guidance.

“This year the report will be presented in November. We start by validating it, data has been collected from what happened from 2023 to date,” said Dr Mberi.

He said the meeting is working on gap filling and getting clarifications from the country’s representatives.

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“We are now gap-filling and getting clarifications from the country’s representatives who are here and they are also interpreting what the picture is like, where there is increase, why and where they are doing well, we want to hear from each other.

“We are now focusing on the 13 countries, we are looking on the impact, are we on track to zero malaria by 2030 in the region or are we off track.

“So far we have all the data submitted. We are now interpreting the data to find out what is it saying.

“From there we will come up with the appropriate recommendations going forward,” he emphasised.

Further, he said SADC was making sure each country was deploying the appropriate high impact interventions for the situation.

The meeting was officially opened by Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora, who is also the chair of the SADC Health Ministers.