Video: Protecting older kids from malaria: seasonal malaria chemoprevention in Niger
Sarah and Rayan are siblings who are among the first in Niger above the age of 5 to benefit from seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC), which is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to protect children in areas where malaria is highly seasonal. The scale-up of SMC in the Sahel region has been successful, protecting 45 million children from seasonal malaria in 2022.
Previously, SMC was recommended for children up to 5 years of age. However, in June 2022, the World Health Organization recommended extending SMC to any child at risk of severe malaria in areas where the disease is highly seasonal.
If successfully scaled up, the intervention could protect millions more children. MMV, Catholic Relief Services, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Malaria Consortium, with the support of KOICA's Global Disease Eradication Fund, are implementing the SMC Impact project in five countries (The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria) to generate evidence on the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of extending SMC to older children and increasing the number of cycles.