IPTp &Malaria in Pregnancy Bill Brieger | 28 Oct 2015 04:40 am
Intermittent Preventive Treatment in Pregnancy: Increasing the Doses in Burkina Faso
Colleagues[1] from the Jhpiego/USAID Burkina Faso Improving Malaria Care Program are presenting a poster at the American Society of Tropical Medicine 64th Annual Meeting Wednesday 28 October 2015. Visit Poster 1655. In the meantime review the abstract below.
In Burkina Faso, Antenatal Care (ANC) is a national platform for malaria in pregnancy prevention and control. The 2010 Demographic and Health Survey showed a good initial ANC registration rate (95%), but over 56% of pregnant women in rural areas do not register until their second or third trimester. Thus they may have missed the full regimen of ANC services including Long Lasting Insecticide-treated nets and intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy (IPTp). In 2010 only 10.6% of pregnant women nationally and 8.4% in rural areas received two doses of IPTp.
The USAID-supported Improving Malaria Care (IMC) project in Burkina Faso has been providing technical assistance and training to health districts and their ANC staff on implementing updated (2012) WHO IPTp guidelines. The recommended provision of IPTp at every ANC visit from the 13th week of pregnancy onward leads to the possibility of 3 or more doses per woman. The new guidance was incorporated into the update of Burkina Faso’s malaria strategy and has been disseminated since September 2014.
Annual data from the Health Management and information System for 2014 from three districts (Batie, Po and Ouargaye) and 61 health clinics where IMC has been working were collected and summarized. A total of 26,909 
women registered for ANC. Of these 89.7%, 73.2% and 39.8% attended ANC twice, three and four times respectively. Of those registered 84.1%, 73.2% and 18.8% received IPTp once, twice and thrice. Eleven (17.7%) had not started the updated IPTp guidance. The Ministry of Health also experienced stock-outs of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine.
Based on this slow implementation and uptake of IPTp3+, the IMC project in collaboration with the National Malaria Control Program is examining ways to strengthen antenatal malaria prevention including capacity building for ANC staff and community IPTp provision.
[1] Ousman Badolo, Stanislas P. Nebie, Mathurin Dodo, Thierry Ouedraogo, Rachel Waxman, William R. Brieger