How Sri Lanka Eliminated Malaria

Date/Time: 24 October 2018, 12:00 PM
Speaker: Kevin Palmer, Ph.D.
Speaker Affiliation: Adjunct Professor, Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Venue: John A. Burns School of Medicine, Medical Education Building Auditorium (Room 315)

For more info: Cori Watanabe 808 692-1654
Description: Dr. Palmer, a senior public health professional who started as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia establishing a malaria eradication program in the State of Kelantan, is a globally recognized expert in malaria, malaria elimination, dengue, and lymphatic filariasis with extensive experience in program planning, project implementation, program assessment and management. His experience with malaria has covered the entire period from malaria eradication, to malaria control and now malaria elimination. He has worked in Asia and the
Pacific for 31 years at all levels of malaria control right down to the village and household levels and with mobile/migrant populations. During his 23 years with WHO, he worked at both regional and country levels,including nine years in the field working with all eight national malaria control programs in the Western Pacific Region, first as a member of the Regional Anti-Malaria Team based in Malaysia, then six years as the Senior Malariologist based in Solomon Islands, where he introduced mass screening and treatment, carried out mass drug administration and installed pipelines as a form of environmental modification for vector control. While in Malaysia, he helped develop the model for community-based treatment in Sabah and conducted the first trials of insecticide-treated nets. He spent seven years as the Regional Adviser in Malaria, Other Vector-borne and Parasitic Diseases at Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila, and then two years as the WHO Representative based in Apia, Samoa, with responsibility for American Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa,and Tokelau, where he spearheaded the reorganization of national malaria programs and supported the development of the original Global Fund grant proposals that provided the funding needed to get programs back on their feet. He also helped countries with the response to artemisinin resistance, introduction of artemisinin combination therapies, switch from microscopy to rapid diagnostic tests, response to sub-standard and fake drugs, implementation of community-based treatment, and introduction of the long-lasting insecticidetreated nets. Since his retirement in 2008, he has been a consultant in both the Pacific and Asia, focusing on program planning, preparation of Global Fund grant proposals, Global Fund Concept notes, national strategic plans, monitoring and evaluation, as well as planning for malaria elimination.
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