Co-Chairs

Prof. Olugbenga Mokuolu   University of Ilorin, Nigeria

Dr Noella Umulisa                JHPIEGO, Rwanda

Working Group Secretariat

Dr Konstantina Boutsika       Swiss TPH, Switzerland

After a four-year hiatus, the Case Management Working Group (CMWG) has been revived with the generous financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in 2017. The objectives of the Working Group are to reconvene the global malaria partners to share experiences and evidence on best practices for improving malaria case management.

X(Twitter)@RBM_CMWG

The 13th annual RBM CMWG in Kigali, Rwanda, was held successfully!

Date: September 24–26, 2024

Location: Ubumwe Grande Hotel Kigali, Rwanda.

Documents are ready to read (click to see)

Elected new RBM CMWG Co-chair

Prof. Olugbenga Mokuolu (University of Ilorin, Nigeria) is elected with 60.8% of the votes in January 2024. Olugbenga is the new Co-chair who will co-lead the RBM Case Management Working Group (CMWG) together with Noella Umulisa (JHPIEGO, Rwanda) who was elected in October 2022. Congratulations Olugbenga for your new role! Olugbenga will succeed Larry Barat (PSI, USA) who served his two terms.
A big thank you to Larry for his stellar leadership over the years. The handover/takeover will happen with immediate effect.

Announcement of CMWG Co-Chair (click to read)

Biosketch and motivation note of Prof. Olugbenga Mokuolu (click to read)

Purpose of the Working Group

The RBM CMWG is a dynamic and systematic coordination, convening and facilitating mechanism at global level that aims to: minimize wasteful duplication and maximize synergies, encourage harmonization and pooling of efforts for faster uptake and scale up of malaria case management strategies.

The Working Group aims to achieve consensus on complex strategic issues concerning scaling up implementation of policies for malaria case management, and on synthesizing and disseminating evidence-based best practices. This will be done without duplicating the essential responsibility of WHO expert committees and consultations, which is to advise on norms and standards for products and services and their appropriate use.

Rationale

One of the four essential elements of the RBM strategy is access to prompt diagnosis and effective treatment for malarial disease. Ensuring universal access to malaria diagnosis improves the quality of care and ensures that antimalarial medicines are used rationally and correctly. Ensuring universal access to quality-assured antimalarials in the public and private sectors will ensure that all malaria patients receive prompt treatment. Scaling up access to effective treatment of malaria cases will be contingent on well-coordinated, multi-disciplinary action towards defined objectives, systems, services and products. Challenges to achieving universal access to quality malaria case management including the threat of drug resistance, increasing prevalence of parasites with HRP2 deletions and weak health systems need to be systematically addressed by national programs and their partners. 

Functions of the Working Group

The activities of the CMWG will include, but not be limited to, the following:

Convene: the CMWG brings together a group of partners who work on use of diagnostic methods, improving drug provision, ensuring access to affordable quality drugs and quality treatment advice in both the public and private sectors, improving provider and patient use of malaria drugs, mitigating the risks of antimalarial drug resistance, and measuring the impact of implementation scale up on morbidity. The CMWG can also help identify necessary expertise and experts to bring in on a temporary, ad hoc basis to assist with addressing issues outside of the expertise of the CMWG itself.

Co-ordinate: by bringing the Partners together, gives a forum for the Partners to co-ordinate:

• Developing and maintaining consensus across partners and institutions around strategies for improved effectiveness of key components of case management.
• Identifying critical strategic questions related to malaria case management. Organizing task forces with the partnership secretariat to address these, drawing on a wider range of expertise than is directly represented in the CMWG.
• Examining how effective case management, in accordance with country policies and WHO recommendations, can be taken to scale, sustained and adapted for elimination in endemic countries most efficiently.
• Liaising and coordinating with other relevant Working Groups, institutions, programmes, initiatives, networks and activities, towards RBM objectives to ensure that work reflects changing needs.
• Collaborating with other RBM Working Groups whose work is relevant to, or overlaps with case management to deal effectively with cross cutting issues pertinent to case management.
• Assisting the RBM partnership to develop an appropriate research agenda and promote research.

Facilitate Communication: by bringing Partners together, the CMWG is a forum for communication and mutual learning. Key functions:

• Accelerating flow of information to countries and others in the RBM partnership on developments within other programmes, institutions and initiatives that may have relevance for RBM and case management, including progress in drug development.
• Advising the Board on allocation of resources and capacity building needs for achieving the objective of scaling up effective case management.
• Advocating for increased attention to and resources for effective malaria case management.
• Other activities as requested by the RBM Secretariat or Board within the scope of its expertise and functions.

For further information please refer to the CMWG Revised Terms of Reference adopted in April 2018 following the 9th RBM Partnership Board meeting.

CMWG organization

The CMWG has established three work streams for further development within the context of the RBM Partnership Workplan, and operates according to the Working Group Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

Twitter

@RBM_CMWG