From 2007 to 2011, with support from USAID and in collaboration with University Research Corporation (URC) and Cambodia’s MOH, PfD designed and implemented activities in: capacity-building; information, education and behavior change communication (IEC/BCC); formative and operational research; malaria case management and vector control in the northwest provinces of Battambang, Pailin, Banteay Meanchey and Oddar Meanchey.

PfD developed various innovative IEC/BCC strategies and materials, including the “taxi drivers” pilot project targeting mobile and migrant populations (MMP), based on PfD’s initial research and assessment of MMP travel tendencies. On this premise, PfD recruited and trained local taxi drivers on malaria prevention and treatment, and gave them IEC materials to distribute to their customers. Over 20,000 migrant workers received health education and IEC materials. Due to the success of the pilot, the Battambang provincial health department adopted it as one of its community-based malaria interventions.

Working in collaboration with the Provincial Education Offices in Kratie and Koh Kong, PfD designed a curriculum for educating children on malaria transmission and prevention for its School Health Education programs. Based on the Child-to-Child Methodology, this program enables school children to become peer educators and disseminate key messages to siblings, parents and the community through games, songs, activities and community theater productions. Over 55,700 children have been trained as peer educators in Malaria Health Education. PfD leveraged its expertise in school health education and child-to-child methodologies to work with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) to develop a standardized national curriculum for malaria education in primary schools. The MoEYS approved the curriculum and integrated it into primary school classrooms. PfD trained 32 trainers from provincial and district education offices on how to work with teachers to disseminate and integrate the curriculum into school programs.

PfD, in partnership with the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia, the Institute of Research for Development and with support from the National Malaria Control Program, designed and conducted the “Malaria, Mobile Population and Migrants in the Context of Drug Resistance in Cambodia” study which shed light on the relationship between population movement, land development, malaria and the issue of drug resistance. As a result of this study, PfD developed a conceptual and operational framework using proxy indicators to define areas of concern for potentially imported malaria; emergence; and spread of drug resistance. By using this framework and geographical information systems (GIS), PfD was able to identify geographical areas of concern and to estimate the number of people in each of the three categories. PfD continues to refine this framework and develop it as an operational tool.

PfD played a critical role in building capacity among health professionals and community health workers. It designed and facilitated training workshops for health center and hospital staff in malaria prevention and health education; diagnosis and treatment, including severe case clinical management; logistics/drugs management; proposal writing and project cycle management, and selected and trained over 1,500 community members as Village Malaria Workers and Village Health Workers. PfD’s innovative interventions and research contributed to the development of strategies to address multi-drug resistant malaria in Cambodia, and the underlying challenge of mobile and migrant populations in this context.