Malaria

Gilbert Awekofua, Courtesy of Photoshare

MEASURE Evaluation’s work in malaria includes developing indicators, data collection tools, and guidance on M&E of malaria control programs. It also has an extensive portfolio of methodological research, training programs, and capacity building activities to develop a cadre of global M&E professionals.

MEASURE Evaluation and MEASURE Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are working together to improve global malaria M&E efforts by supporting the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership’s Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group (MERG). MEASURE Evaluation serves as the Secretariat for MERG and chairs the Capacity Building Task Force, while MEASURE DHS chairs the Household Survey Task Force.

In these roles, the projects are developing and rolling out strategies to ensure that M&E technical assistance to the global malaria community, and national malaria programs in particular, strengthens program impact while simultaneously building local human capacity.

Current malaria activities

• Conducting analysis of data collected by the mechanisms above to look at program scale up and progress in malaria control; contributing to several reports generated by WHO and UNICEF on the burden of malaria and progress in malaria control.
• Teaming up to conduct verbal autopsies in conjunction with DHS surveys to try to determine the level of malaria-specific mortality in children under 5; this will be used to measure the impact of the Presidents’ Malaria Initiative (PMI) interventions.
• Gearing up to assist several countries in designing and implementing malaria sentinel surveillance systems to help monitor progress in PMI.
• Partnering with the University of Ghana to offer a one-week course aimed at training national and subnational malaria personnel to increase regional capacity in sub-saharan Africa for M&E of malaria.
• Developing an M&E framework in collaboration with WHO, CDC, and USAID that is useful for measuring malaria control and elimination in South East Asia.

Achievements in malaria

• Developed a framework and indicators for global malaria programs, written a guidance document on malaria M&E, and designed survey tools to collect the relevant information.
• Designed and conducted an assessment of PMI activities in 5 countries in Africa to look at early evidence of success. These assessments focused on data available at the facility level to monitor case load, diagnostic procedures, and treatment protocols. The results will be used to improve programming in those countries and for advocacy at the global level.
• Conducted a study in Madagascar on the diagonal effect of the scale-up of malaria control activities; specifically the effect of malaria scale-up on the proportion of cases due to other diseases at health facilities and the implications for the health system.