Prevention of re-establishment of malaria

Exploring community participation in vectorborne disease control in Southeast Asia: a scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION

Vector borne diseases (VBDs) present significant public health challenges in Southeast Asia (SEA), and the increasing number of cases threatens vulnerable communities. Inadequate vector control and management have been linked to the spread of VBDs. To address these issues, community participation has been proposed as a promising approach to enhance health programmes and control of VBDs. This article outlines a protocol for a scoping review of the published literature on community-participation approaches to control VBDs in the SEA region. The primary research question is 'How does community participation complement the control of VBDs in SEA?' This review aims to provide an overview of various approaches and identify barriers and facilitators to effective implementation.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The research questions will guide the scoping review. In stage 1, peer-reviewed publications from PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus will be searched using predefined search terms related to community-based approaches and VBDs in the SEA region, English, Indonesian and Malay published between 2012 and 2022. In stage 2, the references from relevant articles will be screened for eligibility. In stage 3, eligible articles will be charted in Microsoft Excel to facilitate the review process, and studies will be characterised based on the investigated diseases; this review will also highlight the methodological context of these studies. In stage 4, a thematic analysis will be conducted to derive meaningful findings from the dataset relevant to the research inquiry, followed by writing the results in stage 5. This scoping review aims to be the first to explore community participation in VBD control in the SEA population, providing valuable insights for future research and stakeholders involved in disease control.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This scoping review does not require ethical approval because the methodology synthesises information from available articles. This review is planned for dissemination in academic journals, conference presentations and shared with stakeholders as part of knowledge sharing among those involved in VBD control.

A malaria death due to an imported Plasmodium falciparum infection in Sri Lanka during the prevention of re-establishment phase of malaria

BACKGROUND

Sri Lanka has maintained a rigorous programme to prevent the re-establishment of malaria ever since the disease was eliminated in October 2012. It includes efforts to sustain case surveillance to ensure early diagnosis and management of malaria. Yet, in April of 2023 the death occurred of an individual with imported malaria.

CASE PRESENTATION

The deceased was a 37-year-old Sri Lankan male who returned to Sri Lanka on the 10th of April after a business trip to several countries including Tanzania. He was febrile on arrival and consulted three Allopathic Medical Practitioners in succession in his home town in the Western Province of Sri Lanka, over a period of 5 days starting from the very day that he arrived in the country. Malaria was not tested for at any of these consultations and his clinical condition deteriorated. On the evening of 14th of April he was admitted to the medical intensive care unit of a major private hospital in the capital city of Colombo with multiple organ failure. There, on a request by the treating physician blood was tested for malaria and reported early the next morning as Plasmodium falciparum malaria with a high parasitaemia (> 10%). The patient died shortly after on the 15th of April before any anti-malarial medication was administered. The deceased had been a frequent business traveller to Africa, but with no past history of malaria. He had not taken chemoprophylaxis for malaria on this or previous travels to Africa.

DISCUSSION

The patient's P. falciparum infection progressed rapidly over 5 days of arriving in Sri Lanka leading to severe malaria without being diagnosed, despite him seeking healthcare from three different Medical Practitioners. Finally, a diagnosis of malaria was made on admission to an intensive care unit; the patient died before anti-malarial medicines were administered.

CONCLUSIONS

This first death due to severe P. falciparum malaria reported in Sri Lanka after elimination of the disease was due to the delay in diagnosing malaria.

Imported malaria from land bordering countries in China: A challenge in preventing the reestablishment of malaria transmission

OBJECTIVE

No indigenous malaria cases have been reported since 2017 in China, but a large number of imported cases are still reported every year, including those from the land bordering countries. To characterize their epidemiological profiles will provide evidence for the development of appropriate strategies to effectively address the challenges of border malaria in the post-elimination phase.

METHODS

Individual-level data of imported malaria cases from the land bordering countries were collected from 2017 to 2021 in China via the web-based surveillance systems, and analyzed by SPSS, ArcGIS and WPS software, to explore their epidemiological profiles.

RESULTS

A total of 1170 malaria cases imported into China from six of the fourteen land bordering countries were reported between 2017 and 2021 with a decline trend. Overall, cases were widely distributed in 31-97 counties from 11 to 21 provinces but mainly in Yunnan. Moreover, these imported cases were mainly infected with P. vivax (94.8%), and a total of 68 recurrent cases were reported in 6-14 counties from 4 to 8 provinces. In addition, nearly 57.1% of the total reported cases could seek healthcare within 2 days of getting sick, and 71.3% of the reported cases could be confirmed as malaria on the day they sought medical care.

CONCLUSIONS

China still needs to attach great importance to the risk and challenge of the imported malaria from bordering countries particularly from Myanmar in preventing reestablishment of malaria transmission in the post-elimination phase. It is necessary not only to strengthen collaboration and cooperation with the bordering countries, but also coordinate multiple departments at home to improve malaria surveillance and response system and prevent the reestablishment of malaria transmission in China.

Availability of malaria diagnostic tests, anti-malarial drugs, and the correctness of treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Health facilities' availability of malaria diagnostic tests and anti-malarial drugs (AMDs), and the correctness of treatment are critical for the appropriate case management, and malaria surveillance programs. It is also reliable evidence for malaria elimination certification in low-transmission settings. This meta-analysis aimed to estimate summary proportions for the availability of malaria diagnostic tests, AMDs, and the correctness of treatment.

METHODS

The Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, Embase, and Malaria Journal were systematically searched up to 30th January 2023. The study searched any records reporting the availability of diagnostic tests and AMDs and the correctness of malaria treatment. Eligibility and risk of bias assessment of studies were conducted independently in a blinded way by two reviewers. For the pooling of studies, meta-analysis using random effects model were carried out to estimate summary proportions of the availability of diagnostic tests, AMDs, and correctness of malaria treatment.

RESULTS

A total of 18 studies, incorporating 7,429 health facilities, 9,745 health workers, 41,856 febrile patients, and 15,398 malaria patients, and no study in low malaria transmission areas, were identified. The pooled proportion of the availability of malaria diagnostic tests, and the first-line AMDs in health facilities was 76% (95% CI 67-84); and 83% (95% CI 79-87), respectively. A pooled meta-analysis using random effects indicates the overall proportion of the correctness of malaria treatment 62% (95% CI 54-69). The appropriate malaria treatment was improved over time from 2009 to 2023. In the sub-group analysis, the correctness of treatment proportion was 53% (95% CI 50-63) for non-physicians health workers and 69% (95% CI 55-84) for physicians.

CONCLUSION

Findings of this review indicated that the correctness of malaria treatment and the availability of AMDs and diagnostic tests need improving to progress the malaria elimination stage.

Serological surveillance on potential Plasmodium vivax exposure risk in a post-elimination setting

China was declared malaria free in June of 2021. In the post-elimination setting, vigilant surveillance is essential to sustain malaria free status. Serological surveillance has been recognized as an efficient tool for assessing the immunity levels and exposure risk in a population. In this study, a cross-sectional serological survey was conducted in Yingjiang County, China, in August–September, 2021. The study sites were villages along the borders with Myanmar, which have no local transmission since the last indigenous case registered in 2016. A total of 923 participants from six villages were enrolled. The majority was aged > 36 years (56.12%) and 12.46% (115/923) participants had experienced malaria infection at least once. A magnetic- bead-based assay was used to test antibodies against Plasmodium vivax antigen PvMSP-119 to evaluate the prevalence of antibody positive subjects. A reversible catalytic model was used to assess the risk of exposure. The prevalence of anti-PvMSP-119 IgG was 12.84% [95% confidence interval (CI): 9.22%–16.47%], 13.93% (95% CI: 10.11%–17.74%), and 3.57% (95% CI: 1.40%–5.75%) in three different line-of-defense areas, which differed significantly (P < 0.0001). The prevalence of anti-PvMSP-119 IgG increased with age and no statistically significant difference was detected between the sexes. The reversible catalytic model indicated that the seropositive conversion rate and seronegative reversion rate were 0.0042, 0.0034, 0.0032 and 0.0024, 0.0004, 0.0065 in the first-, second-line-of-defense area and total areas, respectively, and the fitted value did not differ significantly from the observed value (P > 0.1). Although this study found the prevalence of antibody-positive subjects and the seroconversion rate in this post-elimination setting were lower than that in transmission setting, the population still had an exposure risk. Serological surveillance should be considered in post-elimination settings to provide valuable information with which to evaluate the risk of malaria re-establishment.

Development and validation of an online tool for assessment of health care providers' management of suspected malaria in an area, where transmission has been interrupted

BACKGROUND

The alertness and practice of health care providers (HCPs) in the correct management of suspected malaria (CMSM) (vigilance) is a central component of malaria surveillance following elimination, and it must be established before malaria elimination certification can be granted. This study was designed to develop and validate a rapid tool, Simulated Malaria Online Tool (SMOT), to evaluate HCPs' practice in relation to the CMSM.

METHODS

The study was conducted in East Azerbaijan Province, Islamic Republic of Iran, where no malaria transmission has been reported since 2005. An online tool presenting a suspected malaria case for detection of HCPs' failures in recognition, diagnosis, treatment and reporting was developed based on literature review and expert opinion. A total of 360 HCPs were allocated to two groups. In one group their performance was tested by simulated patient (SP) methodology as gold standard, and one month later by the online tool to allow assessment of its sensitivity. In the other group, they were tested only by the online tool to allow assessment of any possible bias incurred by the exposure to SPs before the tool.

RESULTS

The sensitivity of the tool was (98.7%; CI 93.6-99.3). The overall agreement and kappa statistics were 96.6% and 85.6%, respectively. In the group tested by both methods, the failure proportion by SP was 86.1% (CI 80.1-90.8) and by tool 87.2% (CI 81.4-91.7). In the other group, the tool found 85.6% (CI 79.5-90.3) failures. There were no significant differences in detecting failures within or between the groups.

CONCLUSION

The SMOT tool not only showed high validity for detecting HCPs' failures in relation to CMSM, but it had high rates of agreement with the real-world situation, where malaria transmission has been interrupted. The tool can be used by program managers to evaluate HCPs' performance and identify sub-groups, whose malaria vigilance should be strengthened. It could also contribute to the evidence base for certification of malaria elimination, and to strengthening prevention of re-establishment of malaria transmission.

Health workers readiness and practice in malaria case detection and appropriate treatment: a meta-analysis and meta-regression

Background

Health workers (HWs) appropriate malaria case management includes early detection and prompt treatment with appropriate anti-malarial drugs. Subsequently, HWs readiness and practice are considered authentic evidence to measure the health system performance regarding malaria control programme milestones and to issue malaria elimination certification. There is no comprehensive evidence based on meta-analysis, to measure the performance of HWs in case management of malaria. This study aimed to evaluate HWs performance in early malaria case detection (testing) and the appropriate treatment.

Methods

The published literature in English was systematically searched from Medline, Scopus, Embase, and Malaria Journal up to 30th December 2020. The inclusion criteria were any studies that assessed HWs practice in early case detection by malaria testing and appropriate treatment. Eligibility assessment of records was performed independently in a blinded, standardized way by two reviewers. Pooled prevalence estimates were stratified by HWs cadre type. Meta-regression analysis was performed to explore the impact of the appropriateness of the method and risk of bias as potential sources of the heterogeneity in the presence of effective factors.

Results

The study pooled data of 9245 HWs obtained from 15 included studies. No study has been found in eliminating settings. The pooled estimate for appropriate malaria treatment and malaria testing were 60%; 95% CI: 53–67% and 57%; 95% CI: 49–65%, respectively. In the final multivariable meta-regression, HWs cadre and numbers, appropriateness of study methods, malaria morbidity and mortality, total admissions of malaria suspected cases, gross domestic product, availability of anti-malarial drugs, and year of the publication were explained 85 and 83% of the total variance between studies and potential sources of the heterogeneity for malaria testing and treating, respectively.

Conclusion

HWs adherence to appropriate malaria case management guidelines were generally low while no study has been found in eliminating countries. Studies with the inappropriateness methods and risk of bias could be overestimating the actual proportion of malaria appropriate testing and treating. Strategies that focus on improving readiness and early identification of acute febrile diseases especially in the countries that progress to malaria elimination should be highly promoted.