Annual Review 2014-15

We have been using the lessons learnt from malaria control to help meet the challenge of NTDs.

• We evaluated positive deviance on dengue prevention and control in Myanmar as well as in Cambodia, and assisted the Cambodia government in evaluating low cost and effective methods to reduce the burden of dengue.
• In Nigeria, we developed a decision tree tool combining the control of malaria and NTDs to guide policymakers and implementers in carrying out an integrated package of interventions.
• In South Sudan, we were selected by the government to lead a situation analysis report which will inform the revision of the NTD strategy for the next five years.
• We provided over 100,000 school children in Ethiopia with preventive treatment for a range of NTDs.
• We assessed how community dialogues can be effective for the prevention and control of schistosomiasis, which is endemic in Nampula province, Mozambique. 

We are responding to the challenge of equitable access to diagnosis and appropriate treatment of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea is a huge challenge by developing and implementing interventions that focus on accurate diagnosis, especially in areas where resources are limited.

• Through our pneumonia diagnostics project, we have been testing a selection of new field diagnostic tools for pneumonia for community health workers’ use in Cambodia, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia.
• Over 140,000 children were diagnosed and treated through our iCCM work in Uganda. In Mozambique, over 380,000 cases of childhood illness were treated.
• In the Northern Bahr el Ghazal state in South Sudan, we conducted research on the barriers to improving health and nutrition referrals to healthcare centres and nutrition workers.
• We continued to introduce innovative approaches to deliver care for malnourished children. In Nigeria, for example, we explored how an SMC delivery platform can be used effectively for nutrition interventions.
• In Uganda, our five-year Pioneer project ended, with key results showing increased coverage of long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs), strengthened health-seeking behaviour and improved malaria diagnosis.

Read more highlights by downloading the PDF here.

We are using out many years of experience implementing iCCM projects to control malaria and other conditions, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.

• In Uganda and Mozambique, through our inSCALE project, we worked to identify, test and scale up the use of mobile phones by community health workers (CHWs) as a tool for managing cases of illness, resulting in an improvement in the appropriate treatment and retention of CHWs in Uganda.
• We reached over 500 communities in Uganda, spreading positive health-seeking behaviours and knowledge of health issues through our inSCALE village health clubs.

• We were appointed as the technical lead organisation to conduct Myanmar’s first nationwide Malaria Indicator Survey in partnership with the government.
• Our work on the evaluation of large scale iCCM programmes in three sub-Saharan African countries was published in a special iCCM issue of the Journal of Global Health.
• Our Beyond Garki project continued to monitor malaria epidemiology within the context of various interventions and evaluate the findings. Read the most recent results here.

• We completed research that suggests that reactive case detection and treatment may not be appropriate for very low transmission settings where exposure to malaria occurs away from the community such as in forested areas in Cambodia and Thailand.
• We were invited to join the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme’s Technical Expert Group on Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation.
• We successfully applied a positive deviance approach to malaria in order to improve preventive behaviour among mobile and migrant populations in Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
• We started four new research projects this year, winning support to scale up diagnostic testing in the Cambodia-Laos border.
• We convened a roundtable event with donors and experts on the issue of drug resistant malaria and publish the special report, Malaria: the last mile, in partnership with the UK’s New Statesman magazine.

• Read our peer reviewed publications: Malaria Consortium staff have led or provided input into a number of published journal articles this year
• Publications database: Our growing online database contains over 300 resources including technical reports, learning papers and advocacy briefs.
• Films: Our experiences in the field are captured in our films.
• Website and pages: Our webpages have a wealth of information in the areas we work in and our projects worldwide