Intercountry collaboration for improving surveillance and control of vector-borne diseases. Final report of EHP support in Bangladesh Bhutan India and Nepal.

This report describes the activities and results of a program to improve the surveillance and control of three vector-borne diseases—malaria Japanese encephalitis and kala azar—through bilateral and regional collaboration among four countries: Bangladesh Bhutan India and Nepal. The program was implemented over a four-year period (July 2000–June 2004) by the Environmental Health Project (EHP) with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In 1998 the USAID Mission to Nepal and the Ministry of Health His Majesty’s Government of Nepal launched a six-year development assistance project called the Program for Prevention and Control of Selected Infectious Diseases in Nepal. One key objective of the program was “to assist the Ministry of Health in establishing inter-country cross-border linkages for addressing prevention and control of priority vector-borne diseases.” In June 2000 the USAID Bureau for Asia and the Near East (ANE) approved a new regional strategy to address HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. The strategy emphasized support for surveillance information-sharing among institutions and monitoring regional trends in disease incidence and anti-microbial resistance. These priorities were closely consistent with the objectives of the inter-country component of the USAID program in Nepal. Thus the cross-border activities described in this report were initiated to pursue objectives specifically for Nepal with funding from the USAID mission in Nepal. As the program developed opportunities arose to promote regional collaboration on vector-borne disease surveillance and control and the ANE bureau contributed funds to support and expand the cross-border program. (excerpt)