Estimating malaria burden among pregnant women using data from antenatal care centres in Tanzania: a population-based study

Publication date: December 2019Source: The Lancet Global Health, Volume 7, Issue 12Author(s): Chonge Kitojo, Julie R Gutman, Frank Chacky, Emmanuel Kigadye, Sigsbert Mkude, Renata Mandike, Ally Mohamed, Erik J Reaves, Patrick Walker, Deus S IshengomaSummaryBackgroundMore timely estimates of malaria prevalence are needed to inform optimal control strategies and measure progress. Since 2014, Tanzania has implemented nationwide malaria screening for all pregnant women within the antenatal care system. We aimed to compare malaria test results during antenatal care to two population-based prevalence surveys in Tanzanian children aged 6–59 months to examine their potential in measuring malaria trends and progress towards elimination.MethodsMalaria test results from pregnant women screened at their first antenatal care visits at health-care facilities (private and public) in all 184 districts of Tanzania between Jan 1, 2014, and Dec 31, 2017, were collected from the Health Management Information Systems and District Health Information System 2. We excluded facilities with no recorded antenatal care attendees during the time period. We standardised results to account for testing uptake and weighted them by the timing of two population-based surveys of childhood malaria prevalence done in 2015–16 (Demographic and Health Survey) and 2017 (Malaria Indicator Survey). We assessed regional-level correlation using Spearman's coefficient and assessed the consistency of monthly district-l...
Source: The Lancet Global Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research