2013-08-10

Guilin Pharma, NMCP of Cote d’Ivoire and ISITD successfully hosted a special “Malaria Scientific Day” in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

On 18th July 2013, Guilin Pharma, together with the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) of Cote d’Ivoire and the Ivorian Society of Infectious and Tropical Disease (ISITD) successfully held a “Malaria Scientific Day”, an academic event on the state of the art and latest evidence-based WHO recommended strategies and field management of malaria in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

The event comprised two important sessions, one in the morning and the other in the evening. The first session in the morning (10-12h), held at the auditorium of the School of Medicine, Abidjan University, focused on new developments in malaria research and was targeted at students, postdoc, scientists and professors. Attendance was high as it attracted more than 150 participants. This high-level conference on malaria was animated by two well-known malaria experts, Prof. Ogobara DOUMBO, Director of the Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC), University of Bamako, Mali and Prof. Umberto D’ALESSANDRO, Team Leader Disease Control & Elimination» at the Medical Research Council Unit in The Gambia. The topics covered were “Malaria in pregnancy” and “The future of infectious diseases and parasitology in the 21st century”.

The second event, held in the evening between 6:00p.m and 9:00p.m at the Abidjan International Conference Center, was co-organized by the NMCP (Ministry of Health), the ISITD and by Guilin Pharma; it covered issues related to the management of malaria patients and was targeted at healthcare practitioners. The conference began with an update on antimalarial drug resistance in Sub-Saharan Africa by Dr Louis PENALI regional Director of wWARN, UCAD, Senegal, and continued with an intervention by Prof. Umberto D’ALESSANDRO on antimalarial treatments. Subsequently, Prof. Ogobara K. DOUMBO presented the possible impact of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) with amodiaquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in West African countries. The session was concluded by Dr. Méa Antoine TANOH, the Director of the NMCP who presented the new Ivorian national malaria control policy and guidelines, including the use of parenteral artesunate for severe malaria cases. The event was attended by about 300 local healthcare practitioners, doctors, nurses and members of the ISITD who animated a lively discussion at the end of the presentations.

The “Malaria Scientific Day” was an innovative approach of pharmaceutical marketing in which government authorities and Guilin Pharma worked together for a successful scientific event that also helped to consolidate the professional image of Guilin Pharma as “the expert of Malaria”. Considering the positive experience and feedback received, Guilin Pharma will continue to hold the “Malaria Scientific Day” in other major African markets, with the aim of building an academic communication platform between world-famous malaria experts and local healthcare practitioners, and so improving the local skills to contribute in the fight against malaria in Africa.