Together with the General Secretariat of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) has participated in a meeting on 6 April 2009 with a delegation from Roll Back Malaria Partnership in OIC headquarters. The delegation comprised of Prof. Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Executive Director, Herve Verhoosel, External Relations Manager, and Nadia Lasri, Partnership Facilitation Information Manager. The Centre was represented by Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC, and Mr. Mehmet Fatih Serenli, Acting Director of Training and Technical Cooperation Department. The purpose of the meeting was to explore the ways and means of possible cooperation between Roll Back Malaria Partnership and OIC institutions.

SESRIC has informed the delegation members that in line with its mandate of collating, processing and disseminating socio-economic statistics and information on and for the utilisation of the member states, it hosts the most comprehensive database “BASEIND” on the 57 OIC member states, which maintains a set of 37 indicators on health and health-related fields beside the most recent available date identified and collected on the member states. The SESRIC has already prepared an OIC Outlook on Health Systems and Expenditure in the OIC Member States which draws attention to health systems of OIC member states given the mixed nature and high levels of heterogeneity and divergence in the economic structure and performance of the states.

It was also mentioned that the SESRIC has initiated the recent Ibn Sina Programme for OIC Health Capacity Building to enhance cooperation between the OIC member states in the field of health, in close cooperation with all related national, regional and international institutions. The main objective of the Programme is to effectively plan and implement short-courses and workshops through matching needs and capacities of the relevant health institutions in the OIC member states according to the evaluation of regularly conducted surveys. Ibn Sina Programme pays special attention and concerns towards the improvement of the capacities of member states in the field of communicable diseases including malaria.

The Kuala Lumpur Declaration, signed by the health ministers of the OIC Member States participated in The First Session of the Islamic Conference of Health Ministers, which was held on 12-15 June 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, notes that communicable diseases such as malaria can lead to significant loss of lives and beget negative impacts on the economy of the OIC Member States; and thus urged the Member States to intensify their cooperation with the World Health Organisation and other international organisations to combat global health concerns including malaria. The same Session adopted the Resolution No.3 on Combating Malaria in the OIC.

The Second Session of the Islamic Conference of Health Ministers, which was held on 1-4 March 2009 in Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran, invited OIC Member States with epidemiological expertise and capacities to cooperate in malaria elimination programs with other OIC members and encouraged mobilizing assistance from WHO and the Global Fund.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has already established the Malaria Control Programme.