Leading bednet manufacturer, Vestergaard, says it is committed to achieving the 2025 and 2030 Malaria goals.
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The Chief Executive Officer at Vestergaar, Michael Joos, while speaking during a trilogy of panel discussions, hosted by The Corporate Alliance on Malaria in Africa (CAMA) and its partners to discuss lessons and opportunities in the fight against Malaria in Africa.
He reminded participants that achieving the 2025 and 2030 Malaria goals, and ultimately eliminating the disease, will require renewed commitment and substantial increases in investment, so as to support the innovations that can help accelerate malaria innovation.
“Insecticide resistance is challenging the already fragile gains. We must increase the pace of innovation through strategic partnerships, as it is becoming increasingly more complex to screen new active ingredients, bind them to textiles, and manufacture and scale them as rapidly as possible,” Joos advised.
He also pointed out that innovative companies are acutely aware of the investments and risks required to move from basic research to product development.
The CEO noted that what has proven to be a greater challenge is progressing from product pre-qualification to full-scale implementation.
He also said that strategic procurement contracts and supportive measures for innovative products needed to be adopted as scale are essential to support the roll-out of next generation nets.
“The speed at which we bring such innovative products to market is essential, but equally important is the rigorous evidence required to confirming their impact,” said Joos.
“Greater investment in vector surveillance data along with post-market surveillance, guides not only the selection of the most appropriate interventions to deploy, but also provides insight into their long-term efficacy and adoption by the population,” He said.
Mr Joos also said that the private sector can play a central role in these efforts provided a clear innovation pathway is defined to go from idea generation to market and enable investments in Research and Development and manufacturing ramp-up.
During the dialogue series, Vestergaard focused on how the malaria community and private sector can better partner to accelerate elimination of the disease, as well as the need for strategic procurements to bring product innovation faster and at scale to market. In addition, they highlighted the importance of a regulatory framework to support the evaluation of the in-country performance of vector control tools.
The three-part webinar series focused was on sustaining progress in the fight to end Malaria.
Like the previous two events, the conversation included high-level representation from the private sector such as Exxon Mobil, Access Bank and Heineken in addition to Vestergaard, as well as government organisations including the Ministries of Health in East and West Africa, and multilateral organisations such as Global Fund, World Health Organisation and Africa CDC.
CAMA encouraged participants to state their pledge in the fight against Malaria and their support for the End Malaria Project in Nigeria.
As part of its commitment, Vestergaard pledged technical support in terms of establishing a systematic post-market surveillance framework for Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets jointly with National Malaria Elimination Programme.
The support will include knowledge transfer on insecticide resistance testing protocols for vectors and for assessing the bio efficacy of bednets, from Vestergaard Noguchi Vector laboratory in Accra, Ghana.
Vestergaard also committed to support towards expanding the number of vector surveillance sentinel sites in Nigeria.
“It is encouraging to see how the community has already stepped up to continue and accelerate efforts against Malaria despite the obstacles. Vestergaard applauds the End Malaria Project initiative, which seeks to galvanize support towards reducing the incidence and prevalence of Malaria in Nigeria,” Joos.added
Vestergaard is the manufacturer of innovative, high-quality tools to improve global health outcomes in mainly low- and middle-income countries.
They are known for their PermaNet® long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) to prevent malaria, the company has manufactured 800 million PermaNet® protecting an estimated 1.6 billion lives in malaria-endemic countries.
