MIN/Sp/AU/CAMH3/6 Malaria Page 6 the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and the WHO Malaria Strategies. Through incremental steps, African countries will subsequently aim to eliminate malaria and interrupt local transmission. The planning needs to be country specific in order to deal with the timelines required to reach the preparatory stages of elimination. The general direction to move from malaria control to elimination through incremental programming; a) High Transmission Areas (referred to as Group 1) In most of the African countries, malaria transmission is intense with high levels of malaria morbidity and mortality. Although the Abuja Report of the Abuja Declaration found that considerable progress had been made, the current status of coverage with anti-malarial interventions is unlikely to produce impact by 2010. For the countries not mentioned below (the rest of Africa) they are considered to have high transmission of malaria event though some countries may have some malaria free areas within their borders. For these countries, the direction of the Africa Malaria Elimination Campaign is to have universal coverage of preventive and treatment interventions against malaria in order to reduce the burden of malaria to levels where it is no longer a public health concern. The interventions would consist of indoor residual spraying (IRS), use of insecticide treated materials (ITMs), intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) including other related prevention measures, and diagnosis and treatment (combination therapies) of malaria with universal access to these interventions. Sustainable financing for the implementation of malaria interventions and strong advocacy for social and community mobilisation for sustained delivery and use are critical for achieving impact. In addition, strong surveillance and health information systems as appropriate and strong intercountry and cross border collaboration are critical in order to achieve reduction in the burden. Once this stage is completed, the duration of which depends on the efforts and achievements of individual countries, this group of countries would subsequently aim to move on to the stage of malaria elimination. b) Low Transmission Areas (referred to as Group 2) The intensity of transmission and incidence of malaria in countries such as Algeria, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, the Comoros, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe is relatively low and involves parts of the countries. There have been improvements in access to anti-malarial measures, as well as promising impacts on malaria prevention and control efforts. For these countries, the immediate direction of the Africa Malaria Strategy is to move from malaria control to elimination, as a logical extension of the successes in malaria control achieved by these countries. The approach in these countries should be the implementation of anti-malaria program deliberately aimed at elimination. These programmes combine intensive efforts to control the disease locally through facility based case management, active case detections and treatment approach, strong surveillance system and targeted vector control with extensive inter-country collaboration for screening and follow-up of imported cases. Through the incremental stage, these countries will subsequently aim to maintain a malaria-free status. Status Report on Malaria in Africa 2008