By Kemo Cham
[First published on www.politicosl.com] The Ministry of Health
and partners have kick-started the 2016 national Malaria Indicator Survey
(MIS).
The exercise which commenced on
Monday involves about 200 health workers who are moving from house to house
collecting data relating to the deadly malaria disease.
MIS is designed to measure the
coverage of the core malaria control interventions which will help the country
assesses its implementation strategies. The household survey, conducted every
two years, is meant to gauge progress on outcomes and impact by measuring
status of key malaria indicators. It will crucially provide much needed data
for the Ministry of Health and Sanitation which is very critical for
programming to improve on the reduction and control of the disease.
Malaria is one of the biggest public
health challenges facing Sierra Leone, ranking as the biggest killer disease
among children under five.
According to the 2013 MIS, Sierra
Leone has a 43 percent prevalence rate of the parasitic disease. The country is
ranked among the fifth most malaria endemic countries, according to World
Malaria report.
Dr Samuel Juana Smith, Manager of
the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), explained to Lifelines that the
exercise is just random sampling and that as such only a select group of
communities, amounting to 7, 000 households, would be targeted. He said data
would be collected from 336 clusters, with 20 households per selected cluster.
The field staff will collect
national, regional and district data from the representative sample of
respondents, he said.
Smith said the survey was designed to measure the coverage of the core malaria control interventions defined in the 2011-2015 National Malaria Strategic Plan to help the country assess current implementation strategies. He added that the 2016 survey will be district specific and designed to measure the performance of each district and region, and that it would focus on specific issues and trends that are peculiar to the country situation.
Smith said the survey was designed to measure the coverage of the core malaria control interventions defined in the 2011-2015 National Malaria Strategic Plan to help the country assess current implementation strategies. He added that the 2016 survey will be district specific and designed to measure the performance of each district and region, and that it would focus on specific issues and trends that are peculiar to the country situation.
The Global Fund is funding the
initiative at the cost of US$ 1.3m. It is being implemented by the Catholic
Relief Service (CRS), alongside the Ministry of Health and Sanitation through
the NMCP.
The team also includes Statistics
Sierra Leone, the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences of the
University of Sierra Leone, the World Health Organisation, and UNICEF.
The exercise is expected to end on
August 8.
MIS was developed by the monitoring
and evaluation working group of Roll Back Malaria, an International partnership
which coordinates global efforts to fight the disease.
This will be the third survey conducted in Sierra Leone since the first one in 2010. The second, in 2013, was the first to include rapid diagnostic testing and microscopy to determine the national malaria prevalence among children under age five.
The 2013 survey found that there were more than 1.7 million cases of malaria in the country. And according to WHO, 4,326 people died of the disease that year.
This will be the third survey conducted in Sierra Leone since the first one in 2010. The second, in 2013, was the first to include rapid diagnostic testing and microscopy to determine the national malaria prevalence among children under age five.
The 2013 survey found that there were more than 1.7 million cases of malaria in the country. And according to WHO, 4,326 people died of the disease that year.
Officials say this year’s exercise
is timely coming during the post-Ebola recovery period.
Health workers who will conduct the
exercise had undergone weeks of training. They will issue out questionnaires to
people to fill. They will also take advantage to provide children aged 6-59
months with testing for anemia and malaria. Free treatment will be offered to
those who test positive.
Colonel, Dr Sahr Foday, head of the
34 Military Hospital, is the Principal Investigator of the 2016 MIS. He said at
a pre-launch press conference that the key objectives of the exercise were to
measure the level of ownership and use of mosquito nets, assess coverage of the
intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant Women, and identify treatment
practices, including the use of specific antimalarial medications to treat
malaria among children under 5, identify diagnostic trends prior to receiving
antimalarial medications for treatment of fever and other malaria-like
symptoms, measure the prevalence of malaria and anaemia among children age 6-59
months, assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices of malaria among women age
15-49 years, allow tracking of trends over time, and intended as a simpler,
malaria focused survey alternative to DHS, MICS.
(C) Politico 29/06/16
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