Leaders in global and regional public health have gathered in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, for a landmark collaborative summit focused on one of the region’s most persistent public health challenges: ending malaria transmission by 2027. The meeting, convened under the umbrella of the Regional Initiative for Malaria Elimination (IREM), brought together top health officials from nine Latin American and Caribbean nations alongside representatives from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and leading international health organizations. Delegations from Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala joined their Dominican hosts to share on-the-ground lessons, assess current progress, and align coordinated strategies to meet the ambitious 2027 elimination target.
Dominican Republic’s Health Minister Víctor Atallah opened the summit by outlining his country’s recent gains in the fight against malaria. Atallah credited targeted investments in strengthened epidemiological surveillance, expanded access to early diagnostic testing, immediate access to treatment, and deep community engagement for the sharp reduction in local transmission recorded in recent years. He underscored a core truth guiding the entire summit: infectious diseases do not respect national borders, making cross-regional collaboration not just beneficial, but essential to lasting success.
Beyond malaria-specific goals, the summit also expanded to address broader systemic public health priorities across the region. Delegates discussed coordinated action to expand equitable access to high-cost life-saving medicines, build more resilient health systems capable of withstanding emerging health threats, and scale up prevention and management programs for non-communicable chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular conditions that disproportionately impact communities across Latin America and the Caribbean.
New data presented by IDB officials at the meeting highlights how far the region has already come through collaborative action. Across all participating nations, response capacity has improved dramatically: more than 80% of all malaria patients now receive life-saving treatment within 24 hours of receiving a diagnosis. The Dominican Republic in particular earned regional recognition for its strong performance, having already met 82% of IREM’s core performance indicators, placing it among the top-performing nations in the region for malaria control and prevention efforts.
In closing, summit participants reached a unified consensus on the critical ingredients needed to cross the finish line for malaria elimination. Sustained high-level political commitment, long-term predictable financing, continued investment in scientific research, and ongoing expansion of robust regional surveillance systems were all identified as non-negotiable to achieving elimination goals and lifting overall public health outcomes for millions of people across the region.