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Today, more than one third of malaria deaths occur in African countries affected by conflict; the people most vulnerable to this disease are those who are displaced, self-settled and living in temporary housing conditions. With almost 500 million cases being diagnosed every year, malaria is on the rise. Further, because malaria is common in these countries, it can often take an average of four months to detect an epidemic, making the need for complex emergency technical assistance critical.
To fully understand the impact of malaria and how to better protect people against this disease, BASF recently took part in a five-day Complex Emergency training session with MENTOR (Malaria Emergency Technical and Operational Response). In the past, BASF had partnered with MENTOR to provide FENDONA® insecticide to the war-torn refugees of Liberia's capital city, Monrovia; however, BASF believed that its participation in this training could provide its public health team with a greater awareness of the opportunities in the Complex Emergency
(CE)/Malaria prevention sector.
MENTOR, a leading CE Technical Assistance (TA), non-government organization, works in collaboration with organizations such as Johns Hopkins University, Roll Back Malaria, the World Health Organization, and national partners to provide emergency relief in the affected countries. Originally housed out of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for International Emergency, Disaster, and Refugee Studies, MENTOR is now an established independent charity registered in the United Kingdom.
Today, MENTOR is active in Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In addition to discussions for programmatic work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, MENTOR will be accompanying the World Bank Mission to the DRC in the coming months.
MENTOR's main objectives focus on:
- Capacity building and training of country ministry and field staff
- Field support, providing rapid assessment, effective intervention(s), preparation and planning, monitoring, treatment and prevention of malaria in complex emergency and refugee situations
- Operation research for field-level evaluation of new and old tools, treatment costs, and new field strategies
- Epidemic detection, preparation and response
More information can be gained from www.relief.org and www.mentor-initiative.net.
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