With nearly 700 million people getting mosquito-borne illnesses each year resulting in over one million deaths, mosquito-borne illnesses have been identified as one of the world’s major health challenges.
Diseases transmitted by mosquitoes include Malaria, Dengue, West Nile virus, Chikungunya, Yellow fever, filariasis, tularemia, dirofilariasis, Japanese encephalitis, Saint Louis encephalitis, Western equine encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Ross River fever, Barmah Forest fever, La Crosse encephalitis, and Zika fever, as well as newly detected Keystone virus and Rift Valley fever.
Most of these diseases and deaths are concentrated or common in Africa, and mosquito control is one of the most effective ways of helping to reduce or eliminate the scourge of these diseases.
To help achieve this objective, the Pan-African Mosquito Control Association (PAMCA), was formed in 2010 and headquartered in Kenya, as a professional body to bring together players in the field of mosquito and mosquito-borne disease control.
The Association provides a platform for capacity building, knowledge sharing and collaboration for concerted vector control initiatives in Africa.
The Association seeks to facilitate collaboration between African scientists and other partner institutions, to work together and adopt common programmes and specific objectives.
The overarching goal of the Association is to bring together and adopt common approaches to tackling the burden of mosquito-borne diseases across the continent.
In Ghana, malaria remains a maior public health problem and responsible for several deaths in local communities.
Outbreaks of Denque, Chikungunya and Zika are on the rise in countries surrounding Ghana.
To help raise awareness about the connection between mosquitoes and and the diseases, and to work with the communities to prevent mosquito breeding, PAMCA Ghana Chapter was formed to work with major stakeholders towards the realisation of a Ghana free from mosquito-borne diseases.
PAMCA-GHANA has thus lined up several activities to be carried throughout the year across the country, which will center on the provision of information, social mobilization, and the participation and empowerment of communities in mosquito control activities.
PAMCA-GHANA will also host the 7th PAMCA Annual Conference and Exhibition under the theme: ‘Empowering Local Institutions to set the agenda for the elimination of vector-borne diseases.’
The conference which will be held in Accra from the 21st to 23rd September 2020, will bring together about 500 participants mainly from Africa to share information on mosquito control activities and provide a forum for exchange of ideas and new technology.
The conference will be guided by 5 sub-themes centered on surveillance, capacity building and prevention of mosquito-borne diseases as well as a discussion on some innovative tools currently available for controlling mosquitoes.
The conference will provide a platform for scientists to interact with their peers, upcoming researchers and students, sponsors, universities and research institutions, collaborators, development partners and policy makers from different countries as well as an exhibition of mosquito control products and services from health and allied industries.
