On World Malaria Day 2012, WHO hails global progress in combating malaria but highlights the need to further reinforce the fight. The Global Malaria Programme's new initiative, T3: Test. Treat. Track, urges malaria-endemic countries and donors to move towards universal access to diagnostic testing and antimalarial treatment, and to build stronger malaria surveillance systems.
The initiative seeks to focus the attention of policy-makers and donors on the importance of adopting WHO's latest evidence-based recommendations on diagnostic testing, treatment and surveillance, and updating existing malaria control and elimination strategies, as well as country-specific operational plans.
Malaria-endemic countries should ensure that every suspected malaria case is tested, that every confirmed case is treated with a quality-assured antimalarial medicine, and that the disease is tracked through timely and accurate surveillance systems to guide policy and operational decisions. The initiative is built on a foundation of the following core WHO documents:
Universal Access to Malaria Diagnostic Testing: an Operational Manual (2011) Guidelines for the Treatment of Malaria, Second Edition (2010) Disease Surveillance for Malaria Control, and Disease Surveillance for Malaria Elimination (2012)
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