TY - JOUR T1 - Malaria vector control in sub-Saharan Africa in the time of COVID-19: no room for complacency JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003880 VL - 5 IS - 9 SP - e003880 AU - Carlos A Guerra AU - Olivier Tresor Donfack AU - Liberato Motobe Vaz AU - José A Mba Nlang AU - Lucas O Nze Nchama AU - Jeremías N Mba Eyono AU - Matilde Riloha Rivas AU - Wonder P Phiri AU - Christopher Schwabe AU - Edward Aldrich AU - Josea Ratsirarson AU - Godwin Fuseini AU - Guillermo A García Y1 - 2020/09/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/5/9/e003880.abstract N2 - Summary boxIn sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the COVID-19 pandemic could cause major disruptions to the delivery of malaria vector control interventions.Such disruptions could potentially lead to significant increases in malaria morbidity and mortality in the region.The challenges for sustaining malaria vector control are multiple, from funding shortages to obstacles during implementation.The latter are more difficult to appreciate and are described from experience in the field.There is a need for major commitment from governments, organisations and individuals to avert a malaria public health disaster in SSA.The COVID-19 pandemic can potentially bring public health interventions in low-income countries to a collapse. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the saturation of health systems can expose pre-existing fragilities and exacerbate the myriad health problems afflicting human populations. In particular, SSA bears the brunt of malaria,1 which caused around 200 million cases and 400 000 deaths in 2018, mostly in young children.2The challenges for health systems of coping with COVID-19 and malaria at the same time are onerous due to complex interactions between both diseases. Malaria and COVID-19 can be symptomatically similar, complicating differential diagnosis. Therefore, malaria infections may go undiagnosed in people presenting fever and testing positive for COVID-19, potentially causing malaria cases to go untreated. In another scenario, symptomatic, malaria-infected individuals could be deterred from seeking healthcare due to fear of COVID-19 infection or could be denied treatment if health centres and hospitals were overwhelmed. Perhaps most importantly, the increasing demand for resources to curb COVID-19 and the curtailment of economic activities driven by the pandemic could lead to substantial reductions in government revenues,3 undermining their ability to finance essential social services, including life-saving malaria vector control interventions. Here, we focus our discussion on vector control for preventing malaria in SSA in the context of the current pandemic, … ER -