Malaria Control activities are on the ground since the formulation of Health Services provision fundamentals outlined in Bohr’s commission in the Sub-continent; in Pakistan, these are functional since 1950s through a succession of different approaches. The most ambitious program was the Malaria Education Campaign, spearheaded by USAID in 1961. Then the global approaches were changed due to health priorities and drawbacks encountered with widespread drug and insecticide resistance. Then as a strategy WHO initiated a global malaria control program aiming to reducing the malaria burden to manageable levels. Pakistan program was also directed toward control approaches through the decentralization process and other funding difficulties during post this era did not allows successful transformation of the operations.

Malaria personnel cadres were amalgamated and Malaria Control program was made a Provincial transferred subject, leveling an apical set up at the Federal level, for the purpose of policy formulation and maintaining coordination. Further the implementation responsibilities were transferred to respective district government in line with the devolution plans. In 1977 Malaria control activities were integrated with the Communicable Disease Control.

Owing the two major failures in the endemic countries control programs, in 1998, Roll Back Malaria (RBM) initiative was coordinated and started by WHO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank. Pakistan being the signatory to the effect, started RBM implementation in the phased manner by earmarking 273 million from PSDP allocations for 5 years since FY 2001-02, supplemented by the provincial PC-1 allocations while 658 million have been approved for the next 5 years 2007-2012 to support provincial programs.

Under 18th amendment in the constitution Federal Ministry of Health along with its attached departments including Directorate of malaria Control were devolved on 30th June 2011.

Current Malaria cases are shown below:

The following Table shows trend of the above mentioned data from (2009-2015).

Malaria Strategic Plan, Pakistan – 2015-20

Goal:

By 2020, reduce the malaria burden by 75% in high and moderate endemic districts/agencies and eliminate malaria in low endemic districts of Pakistan, aligned with The Global Technical Strategy (GTS) and Global Malaria Plan of Action (GMAP) 2015-2020.

Objectives:

1) To achieve <5 API in high endemic areas of the province of Balochistan, Sindh, KP and FATA region by 2020.

2) To achieve <1 API within moderate endemic districts of Balochistan, Sindh, KP and Punjab by 2020.

3) To achieve Zero API within low endemic districts of Sindh, KP and Punjab by 2020.

Specific objectives:

1) To ensure and sustain the provision of quality assured early diagnosis and prompt treatment services to >80% at risk population by 2020.

2) To ensure and sustain coverage of multiple prevention interventions (IRS, LLINs & and other innovative vector control tools and technologies) to 100% in the target high risk population as per national guidelines and coverage of foci in moderate and low risk districts by 2020.

3) To increase community awareness up to 80% on the benefits of early diagnosis and prompt treatment and malaria prevention measures using health promotion, advocacy and BCC intervention by 2020.

4) To enhance technical and managerial capacity in planning, implementation, management and MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning) of malaria prevention and control intervention by 2016.

5) To ensure availability of quality assured strategic information (epidemiological, entomological and operational) for informed decision making and; functional, passive and active case based weekly surveillance system in all low risk districts by 2017.

6) To ensure provision of malaria prevention, treatment and control services in humanitarian crises, emergencies and cross-border situation.