INTERVIEW WITH
Dr Jamal Ghilan Amran
General Director of the National Malaria Control Program

Listen to the Interview (Windows Media - 1.5 MB)

Dr Amran:
My name is Jamal Ghilan Amran. I am responsible for the Malaria control program in Yemen. Actually malaria in the Republic of Yemen is the major problem in public health. Every year annually malaria recorded cases are between 1.5 million to 3 million. The mortality from this disease is ranging from 15,000 to 30,000 every year. As a program we are dealing with two aspects. The first is we are controlling the mosquito itself. The other part is dealing with persons affected by the disease, treatment, health education and trying to manage the cases so it's a complex program.

Form 1990 to 1999 there was no program as such and had a very minimal financial budget which is about 15,000 to 30,000 Yemen real a month which is almost US$100.

GFATM: US$100 per month for the national malaria program?

Jamal:
Yes at that time it was this amount of money. In 2001 they have raised this amount until it became 365 million Yemeni rials, about US$2 million per year from the government. This encouraged other donors. In fact it was the starting point and we started the program in 2001 with 5 medical doctors. Now at this moment we are about 30 medical doctors.

So the first objective of the Global Fund is building two centers, a national center in Sanaa and a regional center in Tihama region, because this region is, the problem is about 60% of malaria burden in all Yemen is in the Tihama region. So this is the first objective is going to help a lot in controlling malaria as a major disease in Yemen. Beside that building up the capacity of the nationals. We are having a few trained in quality control, one holding a masters in entomology is studying now in Egypt. Also a computerized network has been built up funded by the Global Fund. Beside that a few cars for transportation, insecticide also. So this is going to play a major role in controlling malaria, beside other partners.