20 January 2025
Prof Olivo Miotto (left) and other members of the GenRe-Mekong team were in Laos the week of 20 Jan to meet with Dr Virasack Banouvong, (Director CMPE) and other team members at the Centre for Malaria, Parasitology and Entomology (CMPE). A genetic surveillance project, GenRe-Mekong aims to provide National Malaria Control Programmes (NMCPs) in the Greater Mekong Subregion and other public health stakeholders with timely and actionable knowledge to support their decision-making in activities relevant to malaria elimination efforts. Laos has made enormous progress towards malaria elimination and is on track to eliminate malaria by 2030. Challenges remain, however, not least because Laos shares borders with other malaria endemic countries. In the next phase, GenRe-Mekong hopes to support CMPE to integrate genetic surveillance into their elimination activities, and will work towards bringing the sequencing in country as CMPE have a new molecular laboratory facility built with support from the Australian government.
