ANC for malaria surveillance in Mozambique

The Issue

Monitoring malaria parasitemia generally requires large national household surveys that are representative only to the regional level. Prevalence of malaria among women attending their first antenatal care (ANC) visit has been shown to correlate with parasite prevalence among children under five. This offers a more granular and lower-cost method of tracking malaria parasitemia. PATH, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and in coordination with the UNITAID-funded New Nets Project led by IVCC, commissioned Tropical Health to oversee and implement malaria surveillance among pregnant women in Mozambique in three districts. The work is closely coordinated with Mozambique’s National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) and the Mozambique Ministry of Health (MOH).

Our Approach

Tropical Health, working alongside NMCP and MOH, is implementing training of health workers and data collectors and ensuring data flow. Data from the ANC visits will be compared with findings from the New Nets Project cross-sectional surveys, which also measure parasite prevalence, insecticidal treated nets (ITN) access, and ITN use. Tropical Health will deliver monthly data sets and a qualitative evaluation of the reactions to the programme by ANC health workers. Data will be used to generate evidence for malaria programmes and their technical and financial partners to inform monitoring strategies for both parasite prevalence, care seeking behaviour, and ITN access and use.

Our Findings

Findings will be updated as the project progresses.