Sharing best practices in scaling up interventions for prevention

Abstract

The African Region of WHO is the Region most affected by malaria. It accounts for about 60%of the estimated 300–500 million malaria cases worldwide and for more than 80% of the globalmalaria deaths recorded each year. The economic cost of malaria for the Region is estimated at US$12 billion annually. There is general agreement on cost-effective interventions for malariaprevention and control, namely the use of insecticide-treated nets (‎ITNs)‎, indoor residual spraying(‎IRS)‎, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women and prompt and effective casemanagement.2. The expression of global interest in moving towards malaria elimination underscores the needto accelerate the scaling up of interventions. Most countries are implementing either singleinterventions or multiple interventions piecemeal but have yet to scale up their interventions. By theend of 2006, less than 10 % of children aged below five years who had fever had receivedArtemisinin-based Combination Therapy ACTs and only 10% of them on average slept under ITN.However, in some countries where ITN use is above 40%, e.g. Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Sao Tomeand Principe and Tanzania (‎specifically in the island of Zanzibar)‎, there have been substantialreduction in malaria morbidity and mortality. Similar reductions have been observed in South Africaand Swaziland which mainly use IRS.