RGS Effective coverage - Impact of systems failures in malaria service delivery in Africa
Project Abstract
Malaria treatment provides individual benefits by curing infection and preventing progression to severe disease. Treatment also provides community-level benefits by reducing the infectious reservoir. However, across endemic countries treatment does not always lead to a complete parasitological cure, as a result of poor compliance, adherence, drug quality or other factors. Understanding both the factors leading to quality case-management and the extent of health benefits achieved by such care, thus has critical implications for malaria control programs. This is especially important as some areas move from control to pre-elimination and passive case-management with surveillance and response. In this project we evaluate effective coverage of malaria curative interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa. We quantify excess morbidity and mortality induced by sub-optimal distribution of malaria services incorporating, among other, equity considerations. Combining dynamical disease modelling with economic evaluation methods we illustrate how existing interventions could address these systems failures.