The Annual Pan-African Malaria Control Association Conference and Exhibition has opened in Kigali on Monday, September 26.

Running for the next three days, the international conference is bringing together over 500 participants including entomologists, public health professionals and civil society actors among others to re-double the commitments on Vector-borne diseases.

Opening the conference, the Minister of Health, Dr. Daniel Ngamije indicated that The Vector-borne Diseases (VBDs) pose a serious public health and economic burden to humanity and particularly to the African Region.

“During the conference we will learn from recent scientific research findings on surveillance, prevention, recent advancement in technologies and new tools for effective management of these diseases”.

“Let this conference bring more evidences to inform effective control and elimination of VBDs in Africa”, he anticipated.

It is expected that the meeting will discuss on new strategies to tackle Vector Borne Diseases including

The World Health Organization targets reducing Vector-borne diseases by 90 percent in the year 2030.

This will be achieved by embracing different strategies like enhancing vector surveillance and research, scaling up integrated tools and approaches to tackle those vectors and using digital approaches among others.

Dr. Charles Mbogo, the President of Pan-African Mosquito Control Association described this meeting as an opportunity to collaborate research findings from different countries and share best practices.

He then called for diversity and collaboration from different sectors and areas of life to eliminate vector-borne diseases.

“Involvement of women in vector control leadership will quickly lead to elimination of vector borne diseases. We have to engage our communities and address the risks of vector-borne diseases from a one health perspective as all sectors are involved,”, he stressed.

Involvement of young people

On her side, Professor Sheila Tlou, A Special Ambassador of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, she stressed that young people are the key selected group who urgently need to join the battle.

She said young people should be involved in this fight, because these are the leaders to end malaria and other neglected tropical diseases.

We should have properly trained, properly remunerated to ensure that we have a cohort of leaders who will move on with this exercise of eliminating malaria, she observed.

Vector-borne diseases include Malaria, Dengue, Yellow Fever, Zika, Chikungunya, Rift Valley Fever, Filariasis and many others that threaten the lives of the people.

 More than 80% of the world’s populations is at risk of one or more Vector-borne Diseases causing 700,000 deaths annually.