Akros-led consortium to develop Elimination 8 regional malaria database
By Akros Media on August 19, 2016 in Malaria, News
We are excited to announce that an Akros-led consortium has been selected to develop a regional malaria surveillance platform for a coordinated, eight-country effort to achieve the historic goal of eliminating malaria in eight southern African countries. The Southern African Malaria Elimination 8 (E8) is a partnership between Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The first four of these countries (frontline countries) have an elimination goal of 2020, and the later four (second line countries) hold a goal of elimination by 2030. Consortium members working with Akros include HISP-SA and Compre Health.
E8 countries reported a tremendous reduction of malaria cases of more than 50% since 2004. However, the closer we get to elimination, the better surveillance we must have. Malaria does not respect borders, meaning the four eliminating countries cannot eliminate as long as high transmission remains within the region, and human migratory patterns facilitate parasite movement from more highly endemic countries. Therefore, new regional strategies are needed to support the surveillance and control efforts by the second line countries in order to reduce the reservoir of malaria parasites which have a potential for cross border spread of infections that could re-establish infection in the frontline four countries. As frontline countries progress towards malaria elimination, second-line countries are intensifying their malaria control efforts in order to achieve pre-elimination status.
The knowledge of malaria trends between countries will be one of the main factors influencing the success of malaria elimination. To facilitate the ease of information sharing, the E8 working with the consortium have developed a regional database, which will sit within the District Health Information System (DHIS 2), a system already familiar to many of the 8 countries. The regional database will not be a parallel system — no new malaria data elements or indicators will be collected. Rather several malaria data indicators already captured in countries will be shared amongst countries via the regional database. This is in-line with E8 country-level commitments to malaria data sharing in efforts to eliminate the disease. The more data we have consistently and accurately, the better we can plan and target relevant interventions that will drive the malaria burden in southern Africa down to zero.
