Behind the health center, we see one a person working on vector control collect water samples to check the mosquito larvae density. Based on the density, a decision is made on how much of a granular biological product is needed to add to the water and kill the larvae. This product is very expensive, not very cost-efficient and not supported by the GF, but is nevertheless sometimes used as part of the overall vector control program. Today, no larvae were found.

Global fund financing enables malaria testing, training of community health workers, spraying activities, LLINs, and training of school teachers. In this community there is 100% mosquito net coverage. The nets were distributed in 2013, and renewed in 2014.

The department of Colón consists of 10 townships (total population: 315,000 in 2014), one of them is Tocoa, where we will visit several villages (Prieta, Lérida, and Chiripa). 65 health centers in total in the department. 2 Hospitals, 17 large health centers, rest are rural centers. The policy is that everybody who has a fever gets tested for malaria. Last year, 42000 tests were done in Colon. 1187 were positive. In the township of Tocoa, 10,077 tests were done, 460 positive. The Global Fund supports control of breeding sites, surveillance activities, testing of patients, and mosquito nets, among other things - not the medicine.