While the COVID-19 pandemic persists and continues to take a toll on health systems worldwide, it is important to recognize the remarkable efforts made at country, regional, and international levels to mitigate its impact on malaria. The RBM Partnership recently published a new brief with the best practices observed and applied in the past year to mitigate the effect of COVID-19 on malaria, highlighting practices such as extensive advocacy, extraordinary collaboration, as well as timely guidance and technical assistance by malaria partners.

Challenges delivering malaria services are numerous in South Sudan—even when South Sudan and the world are not gripped by a global pandemic: severe and prolonged flooding, insecurity due to inter-tribal clashes, and hard-to-reach mobile communities. The sheer number of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) required for a nationwide mass distribution introduces an additional strain on the health system.

When COVID-19 arrived in Zambia, staff at all levels of the health system adapted global guidance to ensure safe delivery of essential malaria services. The malaria community adjusted implementation of key interventions, such as integrated community case management (iCCM), while also leveraging existing malaria communication and service delivery mechanisms in the COVID-19 response.

Despite the negative impact to malaria service delivery, Malaysia has taken strategic steps to ensure malaria control and prevention activities are not interrupted during COVID-19. Now more than ever, Malaysia is committed in its efforts to maintain “zero human indigenous malaria” status for 3 consecutive years to be declared malaria free.