Posts or Comments 28 March 2024

Monthly Archive for "March 2015"



Elimination Bill Brieger | 07 Mar 2015

A new working group to support malaria elimination in the Amazon region

DR Antonio Quispe of our Social and Behavioral Foundations of Primary Health Care has posted the following on the course blog site:

Malaria Elimination Working Group, Iquitos-Peru, February 2014

In February 2014, the Malaria Elimination Working Group (MEWoG), in partnership with the Peruvian Ministry of Health (MoH), hosted its first international conference on malaria elimination in Iquitos, Peru. The two-day meeting gathered 85 malaria experts, including 18 international panelists, 23 stakeholders from different malaria endemic regions of Peru, and 11 MoH authorities.

Several key conclusions and points of consensus arose from this meeting. The most important one is that malaria elimination in the Peruvian Amazon is an achievable and nationally and internationally important goal. It will be important to develop a Comprehensive Regional Strategic Plan, which must satisfy several key characteristics.

It was strongly recommended to first, pilot such strategy in suitable sites in the region to establish efficacy and acceptability.

As such strategy is implemented, it will be important to monitor and evaluate progress through a variety of metrics and to set intermediate goals on the path to regional elimination. Targeted parasite elimination strategies that are appropriate to the region must be used, stressing active case detection using sufficiently sensitive and effective RDTs and species-specific treatment of the asymptomatic reservoir.

This is particularly important in the case P. falciparum malaria, which must be treated with ACT and primaquine to interrupt transmission. The strategy must include and facilitate communication between key stakeholders from the region and political support at all levels of government, and the program should be incorporated into established health systems to improve acceptability and sustainability.

The progression of such strategy should be flexible to allow new knowledge of the social determinants of malaria, the cultural acceptability of key interventions, and novel tests and treatments to be incorporated throughout the effort. With this conference, an agreement on the relevance of pursuing malaria elimination as goal has been reached, and the necessary components characteristics of this effort described.

Moving forward, further detail should be elaborated as commitments from numerous key stakeholders are obtained.

(see more on malaria elimination in the Americas – PAHO)

Community &Treatment Bill Brieger | 05 Mar 2015

Fighting Malaria with Community Case Management (CCM) Scale-Up in Kenya

Arianna Hutcheson has posted the following blog on our course website – Social and Behavioral Foundations of Primary Health Care

Screen Shot 2015-03-04 at 11.25.22 AM

Source: https://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/Health/Beyond_Prevention_HMM%20Malaria-EN.pdf

Access to health services is particularly difficult for the poor and those in more inaccessible areas of Kenya. This lack of endemic disease treatment for communities has proven to be quite deadly. With more than 11.3 million cases recorded annually, malaria is the leading killer of children under five years of age in Kenya. CCM, supported by organizations such as WHO and UNICEF, allows Kenya to effectively fight Malaria by using evidence-based life saving treatments that increase the availability and quality of proven interventions.

Using a CCM strategy has shown to decrease under-five malaria mortality by 60% overall under-five mortality by 40%. In Kenya particularly, the CCM pilot program has generated convincing results as seen in the graphic below.

Screen Shot 2015-03-04 at 11.34.45 AM

Access to Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT)  has increased and the education of communities provided by health workers has improved treatment seeking behavior. While the pilot CCM program is an important step to combating malaria, we are in the right time to take the success of this program and implement it country-wide.

Most importantly, CCM is part of the National Malaria Strategy, but it requires a more pronounced place in the plan to implement the successes of the pilot program in all 8 districts.

Action Needed: The Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation (MoPHS) needs to commit and push ahead their own stated agenda for putting community health first by integrating malaria treatment into the already implemented diarrhea CCM program by the end of 2015.

Graphic: https://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/Health/Beyond_Prevention_HMM%20Malaria-EN.pdf

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