Establishing a quality-assured sample collection system for health facility level malaria molecular surveillance in Mozambique

Authors: Neide Canana, Clemente da Silva, Bernardete Rafael, Arsenio Sergio, Aider Sitoe, Wilie Zeferino, Paulino da Costa, Henriques Mbeve, Nelo Ndimande, Arlindo Chidimatembue, Kiba Comiche, Josá Inácio, Baltazar Candrinho, Maria Rodrigues, Eduard Rovira-Vallbona, Alfredo Mayor, Sónia Enosse

Continued training, regular supervision and communication are essential for quality assurance in the establishment of a functional and effective malaria molecular surveillance system.

Integrating molecular malaria surveillance (MMS) into routine malaria surveillance systems is becoming increasingly important in endemic countries. These systems improve data quality and robustness for monitoring trends in Plasmodium falciparum epidemiology. This work discusses the establishment of a sample collection system for MMS in low and medium-high transmission provinces across health facilities in Mozambique. We aimed to identify molecular markers of P. falciparum resistance to diagnostics and antimalarial drugs and to understand the parasite’s genetic diversity to inform programmatic decisions contributing to the control and elimination of malaria. Within this context, Malaria Consortium established a sample collection system to collect dried blood spots for health facility level MMS.

This poster was presented at the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Society's 8th Pan-African Malaria Conference.