Description of an international training course organized by the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar, following an evaluation of the first five years of operation
The paper addresses a common misconception among health care providers and policy makers that late attendance to antenatal care is the single most important limitation for delivering intermittent preventive treatment for malaria. In addition they identify other constraints that may be more amenable to systemwide changes that could improve the delivery of this important health intervention. In particular, a lack of information of health workers on the reasoning for continued use of SP for IPTp, when national policy has replaced it as a first-line treatment.
An original and interesting approach where the hypothesis that drug resistant malaria parasites are at a fitness disadvantage compared to susceptible parasites is tested by analysing mutations of parasite genes associated with drug resistance
The paper looks at the relationship between rainfall and malaria incidence in Sri Lanka, allowing for spatial variability. The research findings indicate that there is little to be gained from the use of rainfall information in malaria control decision-making because of the relative low correlations observed.
A solid contribution towards the development of early warning systems for malaria using a forecasting system based on epidemiological and rainfall data. The difficulties of establishing a forecasting system in a country where there have been dramatic swings in incidence rates over the last century is acknowledged and the authors have taken a pragmatic approach to testing district based forecasting across the country.
