On 23-24 January 2017, the LINK programme held its first full team meeting hosted by Professor Bob Snow in Nairobi, Kenya. This was a valuable opportunity for the London and Nairobi-based team members to meet for an update on the programme and to jointly plan activities going forward. In the first quarter of 2017, LINK will be working to develop profiles with National Control Malaria Programmes (NMCPs) in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Uganda.
While in Nairobi, the team also presented one of its major project outputs, a national timeline of malaria key events, to the Kenya National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP). The Kenyan timeline illustrates the history of malaria from 1910 to 2015 and the progress that the NMCP has made.
The LINK programme is a 4-year DFID-funded collaboration between London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust in partnership with the WHO African regional office. Its aim is to develop and support the use of malaria epidemiological profiles in sub-Saharan Africa and to increase the use of data to guide policy and operational decisions. LINK is led by Dr Caroline Lynch (LSHTM) and Professor Bob Snow (KEMRI-Wellcome Trust).