Bangladesh should engage the private sector for malaria elimination by 2030

Abstract

Bangladesh reduced malaria incidence by 93% from 2008 to 2020 through the action of governmental and non-governmental organizations. The Bangladesh context is unique to South Asia because its successful public sector malaria control programs have historically not engaged corporate partners (as undertaken in Sri Lanka and proposed in India). However, ∼18 million people continue to live at risk of infection in Bangladesh and for-profit private healthcare providers, catalytic for malaria elimination in many countries, are expected to benefit the national program. We distilled (from a large and complex literature) nine distinct strategies important in other developing settings and weighed them in the context of Bangladesh's flourishing private health care sector, driven by patient demand, self-interest and aspirations for public good, as well as heterogeneity in providers and malaria-prevalence. We propose a new model dependent on five strategies and its immediate deployment considerations in high endemic areas, to empower Bangladesh's phased agenda of eliminating indigenous malaria transmission by 2030.