The SMC Alliance holds its 2023 annual meeting in Conakry Guinea

The SMC Alliance held its 2023 annual meeting in at the end of February in Conakry Guinea. In attendance was the Saif Kaidi, chief of staff of the ministry of health, Dr Bachira, and Mr Jean Konan from the WHO country office in Guinea and Dr. Seneman Gany.  Seventeen countries were in attendance. These include Uganda, Mozambique and Cote d'Ivoire who were implementing SMC for the first time. Madagascar, although not currently implementing SMC also attended the meeting to learn from other countries.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Camara who leads the NMCP thanked the SMC Alliance for hosting its 5th meeting in Guinea. He said thanks to the government and international partners and stakeholders, SMC was initiated in Guinea in 2015. Based on lessons learned, it was scaled up in 2017. Thanks to the support of all involved, in 2022, 1.7 million children benefitted from SMC and coverage rates were about 99%.

To date, 15 countries are implementing SMC routinely and several others are piloting the intervention. 17 countries attended this 2023 annual meeting. However, thanks to partners and the resilience of our health systems, Guinea continued to benefit from SMC.