IPTp &Malaria in Pregnancy &Mortality Bill Brieger | 20 Aug 2007 11:55 am
Another Missed Opportunity to Promote IPTp
Last week WHO’s Global Malaria Program (GMP) launched its new guidance for Insecticide Treated Nets. Two key features of the guidance is the stress on providing free nets and the need to achieve total population coverage in endemic areas. The position paper begins by stating that the three primary interventions to be scaled up for effective malaria control include:
- diagnosis of malaria cases and treatment with effective medicines;
- distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), more specifically long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs), to achieve full coverage of populations at risk of malaria; and
- indoor residual spraying (IRS) to reduce and eliminate malaria transmission.
Nowhere in the document, let alone in this highly visible opening paragraph, is there mention of Intermittent Preventive Treatment/Therapy for pregnant women (IPTp). Thus, once again the GMP misses an important opportunity to stress a crucial and well proven intervention to protect the lives of pregnant women, their unborn babies and newborn infants from morbidity and mortality from the most dangerous form of malaria, P. falciparum.
A recent review by ter Kuile et al., has shown once again, that even in areas where there is up to 50% resistance to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) in small children, IPTp with SP is still efficacious in controlling maternal malaria and reducing both maternal anemia and low birthweight in newborns.
We are not sure why the GMP itself has high levels of resistance to acknowledging the lifesaving effects of IPTp, and regret the poor example being set by a leader in world health. Fortunately other major development partners who actually have money to spend are still willing to help countries that suffer from malaria by supporting IPTp.