Community &IPTp &Malaria in Pregnancy Bill Brieger | 15 Nov 2016 06:19 am
Accelerating IPTp uptake through updated WHO IPTp guidance in Malawi
A poster entitled “Building Capacity to accelerate IPTp uptake through the adoption of 2012 WHO IPTp guidance in Malawi” was presented by John Munthali, Lolade Oseni, Dan Wendo, Kabango Malewezi, and Tambudzai Rashidi from Jhpiego’s Malawi Team at the
Community activities encourage IPTp uptake in Malawi
65th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Atlanta. The abstract follows …
Malawi adopted the World Health Organization’s updated guidance on intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) in 2013. Support from the US President’s Malaria Initiative through USAID funded health projects, enabled collaboration between the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) and the Reproductive Health Directorate (RHD) of the Ministry of Health, to build capacity from national to district to frontline health facility levels to implement the updated IPTp policy.
These partners updated IPTp policy in the National Malaria Treatment Guidelines, and developed appropriate training manuals. All 5708 health workers from the 304 facilities in the 15 project districts were trained on the IPTp policy and guidelines. Post-training test scores of health staff increased over pre-test by an average of 40 percentage points.
The community action cycle approach engages community volunteers and local community based organizations to identify and solve local problems and was used to encourage pregnant women to attend antenatal care (ANC) and receive IPTp and long lasting insecticide-treated nets.
Sample page from ANC register showing delivery of IPTp3 and 4, but these data are not yet recorded on summary HMIS forms
Health information system data from the 15 Districts were used to compare ANC and IPTp coverage for 2012 and 2015 fiscal years (Oct.-Sept.). ANC registration in the project area rose from 113,683 to 394,116. IPTp1 as a proportion of ANC registration rose from 52% to 87%, and IPTp2 increased from 17% to 62%. While IPTp3 doses were recorded in the ANC registers, reporting forms in 2015 still did not include space to enter this IPTp3.
Observations at clinics showed IPTp3 and 4 were provided. Malawi’s experience shows that collaboration between NMCP and RHD as well as between clinics and communities not only disseminated knowledge of the new policy, but resulted in increased uptake of services and protection of pregnant women from malaria.