Evidence of successful malaria case management policy implementation in Cambodia: results from national ACTwatch outlet surveys.

BACKGROUND: For over a decade, Cambodia has implemented a number of policies and innovative strategies to increase access to quality malaria case management services and address the drivers of multi-drug resistance. This paper utilizes outlet survey trend data collected by the ACTwatch project to demonstrate how changes in Cambodian policy and strategies have led to shifts in anti-malarial markets. METHODS: Anti-malarial ACTwatch outlet surveys were conducted in Cambodia in 2009 (June-July), 2011 (June-August) and 2013 (September-October). A census of all outlets with the potential to sell or distribute anti-malarials was conducted within a nationally representative sample of communes. Drug information, sales/distribution in the previous week, and retail price were collected for each anti-malarial in stock. Information on availability of malaria blood testing was also collected. RESULTS: A total of 7833 outlets were enumerated in 2009, 18,584 in 2011, and 16,153 in 2013. The percentage of public health facilities with at least one anti-malarial in stock on the day of the survey increased between 2009 (65.8%) and 2011 (90.0%) and remained high in 2013 (82.0%). Similar trends were found for village malaria workers (VMW). Overall, private sector availability of anti-malarials declined over time and varied by outlet type. By 2013 most anti-malarial stocking public health facilities (81.5%), VMW (95.4%), private for-profit health facilities (64.8%), and pharmacies (71.9%) had the countries first-line artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) treatment in stock. In 2013, 60% of anti-malarials were delivered through the private sector, 40% through the public sector, and the most common anti-malarial to be sold or distributed was the first-line ACT, comprising 62.8% of the national market share. Oral artemisinin monotherapy, which had accounted for 6% of total anti-malarial market share in 2009, was no longer reportedly sold/distributed in 2013. Malaria blood testing availability remained high over time among public facilities and VMW, with availability over 90% in 2011 and 2013. Moderate availability was observed in the private sector. CONCLUSIONS: Continued implementation of successful public and private sector strategies in support of evolving malaria drug treatment policies will be important to protect the efficacy of anti-malarial medicines and ultimately facilitate malaria elimination in Cambodia by 2025.

Reactive case detection for malaria elimination: real-life experience from an ongoing program in Swaziland.

As countries move towards malaria elimination, methods to identify infections among populations who do not seek treatment are required. Reactive case detection, whereby individuals living in close proximity to passively detected cases are screened and treated, is one approach being used by a number of countries including Swaziland. An outstanding issue is establishing the epidemiologically and operationally optimal screening radius around each passively detected index case. Using data collected between December 2009 and June 2012 from reactive case detection (RACD) activities in Swaziland, we evaluated the effect of screening radius and other risk factors on the probability of detecting cases by reactive case detection. Using satellite imagery, we also evaluated the household coverage achieved during reactive case detection. Over the study period, 250 cases triggered RACD, which identified a further 74 cases, showing the value of RACD over passive surveillance alone. Results suggest that the odds of detecting a case within the household of the index case were significantly higher than in neighbouring households (odds ratio (OR) 13, 95% CI 3.1-54.4). Furthermore, cases were more likely to be detected when RACD was conducted within a week of the index presenting at a health facility (OR 8.7, 95% CI 1.1-66.4) and if the index household had not been sprayed with insecticide (OR sprayed vs not sprayed 0.11, 95% CI 0.03-0.46). The large number of households missed during RACD indicates that a 1 km screening radius may be impractical in such resource limited settings such as Swaziland. Future RACD in Swaziland could be made more effective by achieving high coverage amongst individuals located near to index cases and in areas where spraying has not been conducted. As well as allowing the programme to implement RACD more rapidly, this would help to more precisely define the optimal screening radius.