Using satellite enumeration for smart IRS planning

Using satellite enumeration for smart IRS planning

By Aniset Kamanga & Andy Prinsen on June 15, 2014 in Health Data Systems, Malaria, News

Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) is one of the most effective tools in the fight against malaria. In Zambia, technicians enter dwellings once per year and spray the wall surfaces of buildings with insecticides that kill mosquitos who land on the walls and deter others from entering. Since mosquitoes feed in the evening and at night when humans are indoors, the spraying can greatly reduce the number of bites that occur.

But in rural areas like Zambia’s Luapula and Central Provinces, it is unclear how many dwellings exist, and where those dwellings are located. Without this information, deciding where to spray the insecticides is very difficult, the planners having no way to effectively target IRS to houses in areas of the highest malaria burden. While IRS remains one of the most effective tools for fighting malaria, the pesticides are expensive and must be targeted effectively.

So how to correct for this information gap? How to find out where exactly these dwellings are located so that they can be targeted effectively? Historically, if dwelling enumeration was done, it was done on foot, enumerators visiting villages in person, identifying houses visually and noting the GPS coordinates with a handheld device. It’s not hard to imagine that this method is extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive – especially for a large-scale enumeration. Zambia’s Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Community Development Mother and Child Health (MCDMCH) and Akros technicians found a solution that is at the same time cost-effective and accurate, providing the pinpoint sort of data required for a more effective IRS implementation.

Akros staffer Anne Mutunda nominated for Jakes Gerwel Award in Pubic Health

Akros staffer Anne Mutunda nominated for Jakes Gerwel Award in Pubic Health

By Akros Media on June 2, 2014 in News

The University of the Western Cape (UWC) School of Public Health in cooperation with The Mauerberger Foundation established an award in 2013 to honor the memory of Jakes Gerwel, the university’s late Vice Chancellor. Before joining the university, Gerwel was Director General in the office of Nelson Mandela’s presidency. Each year the award honors a graduate of the school for the outstanding work he or she has demonstrated in the field of public health.

Anne Mutunda
Anne Mutunda (far right), teaching during a training for W.A.S.H. surveillance officers in her role for Akros.

Anne Mutunda, a Water & Sanitation Health (W.A.S.H.) Surveillance Officer with Akros, is being honored as a nominee for the work she did during her MPH studies at the university. The qualitative study, undertaken in 2012, was initially seen as an exploration of the factors influencing the understanding, experiences and practices of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls in secondary schools in the Mongu District of Zambia’s Western Province. Mutunda recognized a situation where menstruation has been, and still is a taboo that is dealt with in secrecy, information and knowledge about menstruation and menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls being inadequate as a result.

During the process of the study, however, Mutunda would find that there would need to be a clear focus on the anticipated knowledge gap and the associated traditional cultural factors influencing menstrual hygiene. There was also a strong focus on the socio-economics, both of the girls individually and the schools they attended. The poverty in which they lived meant that the girls had no access to the basic necessities of sanitary towels, instead using torn bits of rags or toilet paper. Even more significantly, a lack of water and sanitation facilities at home and at the schools made even the most basic hygiene practices impossible.

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