Continuing to Expand Despite COVID-19

Malaria Consortium’s Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) project focuses on preventing malaria in some of those who are most vulnerable to the disease – children under five years – during the rainy season in of Africa. Most malaria illness and deaths occur during this peak malaria transmission. SMC involves administering four to five monthly courses of antimalarial drugs during the period of highest risk.

Malaria Consortium (MC) has been a leading implementer of SMC since the WHO issued its recommendation to scale up the intervention in 2012. Starting with an early implementation pilot in Nigeria in 2013, Malaria Consortium led the rapid scale-up of SMC through the Achieving Catalytic Expansion of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in the Sahel (ACCESS-SMC) project in 2015–2017, reaching close to seven million children in Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and The Gambia.

In 2018, Malaria Consortium continued to implement SMC in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Chad, mainly using philanthropic funding received as a result of being awarded number one Top Charity status by GiveWell.  In 2020 Malaria Consortium’s SMC project was again chosen by GiveWell as being highly effective at averting malaria cases and offers donors an ‘outstanding opportunity to accomplish good’ with their donations.

As an essential health service that saves lives, Malaria Consortium’s continued to implement SMC in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, expanding to two more countries, Togo and  Mozambique, and reaching over 12 million children.

This year in 2021, Malaria Consortium will expand to nine additional states in Nigeria and implement a new  SMC pilot in the Karamoja region of northern Uganda.  Implementing in six countries MC expects to reach over 17.2 million children with safe and effective life-saving chemoprevention for malaria.