Malaria Surveillance: Report on Continuous Medical Education of Health Workers

Author(s): MEASURE Evaluation PIMA

Year: 2017

Abstract:

Malaria surveillance is the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of malaria-related data, which is essential for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of malaria control programming. Malaria surveillance is closely integrated with the timely dissemination of these data for evidence-based malaria prevention and control. Objective 4 of Kenya’s National Malaria Strategy states that by the year 2018, all of Kenya’s 47 counties should have strong and sustainable monitoring and evaluation (M&E) surveillance systems so that key malaria indicators are routinely monitored and evaluated. Two main surveillance systems are in use in Kenya:

1. District health information software (DHIS), which takes its name from DHIS 2, the software that runs it: Daily routine facility data—outpatient and inpatient malaria cases, malaria commodity data, and laboratory data—are consolidated and reported each month to the subcounty health management team that is responsible for the entry of these data in the DHIS.
2. Integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) system: Data on clinical malaria cases, laboratory-tested and positive cases, and malaria-related deaths are collected daily at health facilities and reported weekly in the electronic IDSR system.

Health workers in targeted counties received a three-day malaria surveillance training from June to July 2016. The training, which used the surveillance training curriculum of the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), addressed both data producers and data users and aimed to enhance their understanding of and ability to analyse malaria data and their capacity to identify corrective actions needed to improve malaria programming. Emphasis was placed on data analysis, data interpretation, use of tools to facilitate evidence-informed decision making, and integrating data in decision making processes. The data quality audit (DQA) findings, however, showed that the knowledge gained during the training was not fully translated into practice. The NMCP recognized a need for continuous medical education (CME) and facility mentorship visits as a way to institutionalize the objectives of malaria surveillance.