Tropical Health Matters

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is the theme of the 2018 World Health Day on April 7th. The concept was applied to malaria in 2009 regarding the provision of long lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs aka ITNs) with the definition of universal meaning one net for every two persons in a household. Up until that time coverage targets for malaria interventions set at the 2000 Abuja Declaration had focused on achieving by the year 2010, 80% of people (particularly pregnant women and children below the age of 5 years) sleeping under ITNs, 80% of children receiving appropriate malaria treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs) within 24 hours of onset of illness and 80% of pregnant women receiving two doses of Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPTp) for malaria as part of antenatal care (ANC).

Definitions have evolved since the Abuja Declaration. The target for ITNs was extended to all household members (thus universal). The ACT target was modified to require treatment based on parasitological testing (microscopy or rapid diagnostic tests). IPTp targets were extended to achieving monthly dosing from the 13^th week of pregnancy, which depending on the point in pregnancy when a women entered the ANC system could be 3, 4 or more doses. In addition to these changes, the US President’s malaria Initiative upped the Abuja targets from 80% to 85% in the countries where it supported national malaria programs.

We are eight years past 2010. It had been assumed that if scale up to 80% had been achieved by then and sustained for five or more years, malaria deaths would come close to zero and elimination of the disease would be in sight. National surveys have shown that reaching these targets has not been simple.

The example of ITNs is a good place to start, as is Nigeria with the highest burden of malaria. The attached chart shows findings from the Demographic and Health or Malaria Information Surveys in 2010, 2013 and 2015. Whether one measures universal coverage by the house possessing at least one net per two residents or by the proportion who actually use/sleep under the nets, we can see that UHC for this intervention is difficult to achieve. Even when households possess nets, not everyone sleeps under them either because of adequacy of nets, preferred sleeping arrangements, internal household power structure or other factors.

In 2015 the majority of nets that existed in households were obtained through campaigns (77%), 14% were acquired from the health services, and 7% were purchased. These systems are not keeping up with the need.

Four endemic countries reported a malaria Information Survey in 2016, Liberia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Sierra Leone. The chart shows that they too have had difficulty in achieving universal coverage of malaria interventions. Of note the chart only includes whether appropriate malaria parasitological diagnosis was done on children who had fever in the preceding two weeks. Data on provision of ACTs is based on fever, not test results, so there is no way to know whether it was appropriate. Generally 20-30% more febrile children received ACTs than were tested.

All three malaria interventions, ACTs, Diagnostics and ITNs, require contact with the health system (including community health workers). If malaria services are indicative of other health interventions, then universal coverage including seeking interventions, getting them and ultimately using them is still a distant goal. To achieve universal coverage there also needs to be universal commitment by countries, donors and technical partners.

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