New animation on crucial role of surveillance in malaria elimination

Strong and effective surveillance is fundamental to achieving malaria elimination. Malaria Consortium’s new animation explains the need to strengthen surveillance systems to collect timely and quality data on disease prevalence and outbreaks, which can then drive rapid and targeted action by governments.

Surveillance is the systematic and ongoing collection, collation, analysis and interpretation of health-related data and the timely dissemination of information to those who need to know so that they can take action. 

Malaria Consortium’s approach to surveillance is guided by a clear vision of how surveillance can strengthen a health system, particularly through improving service delivery, and the flow of supplies and information. Ongoing surveillance tracks disease incidence and outbreaks, and provides information on utilisation of health resources and facilities. This information further informs existing approaches and shares evidence with partners and the community. 

By working closely with national malaria programmes and ministries of health to ensure that surveillance systems are sustainable, Malaria Consortium aims to ensure that surveillance initiatives contribute to programme ownership and longer term effectiveness and efficiency.

In Mozambique, for instance, Malaria Consortium is working with the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), and other global and national partners, to strengthen malaria surveillance, improve data quality and increase the use of data for strategic and operational decision making in Mozambique. The project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As well as the NMCP and World Health Organization, Malaria Consortium works with others involved in surveillance in Mozambique to deliver this project, including the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça.

Watch the animation here:

Read more about Malaria Consortium’s surveillance work here: https://www.malariaconsortium.org/our_expertise/surveillance-monitoring-evaluation.htm