Baseline results of the first malaria indicator survey in Iran at the health facility level

Malaria Journal

Research

Fatemeh Nikpour¹  Ahmad Raiesi¹  Fatemeh Rakhshani²  Alireza Ansari-Moghaddam²  Mahdi Mohammadi²  Aliakbar Haghdost³  Reza Safari⁴  Mehdi Saffari⁵  Mohammad Sakeni⁶  Rahim Taghizadeh-Asl⁷  Mansoor Ranjbar⁷ 

[1] Centre for Disease Control & Prevention, Ministry of Health and Medical, Education, Tehran, Iran;Health Promotion Research Centre, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran;Physiology Research Centre, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran;Province Health Centre & Deputy of Research, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran;Province Health Centre, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran;Province Health Centre, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran;United Nation Development Program, Tehran, Iran;

关键词: Malaria;    Malaria Case;    National Malaria Control Programme;    Malaria Case Management;    Malaria Epidemic;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-10-319

 received in 2011-05-07, accepted in 2011-10-27,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMalaria continues to be a global public health challenge, particularly in developing countries. Delivery of prompt and effective diagnosis and treatment of malaria cases, detection of malaria epidemics within one week of onset and control them in less than a month, regular disease monitoring and operational classification of malaria are among the major responsibilities of the national malaria programme. The study was conducted to determine these indicators at the different level of primary health care facilities in malaria-affected provinces of IranMethodsIn this survey, data was collected from 223 health facilities including health centres, malaria posts, health houses and hospitals as well as the profile of all 5, 836 recorded malaria cases in these facilities during the year preceding the survey. Descriptive statistics (i.e. frequencies, percentages) were used to summarize the results and Chi square test was used to analyse data.ResultsAll but one percent of uncomplicated cases took appropriate and correctly-dosed of anti-malarial drugs in accordance to the national treatment guideline. A larger proportion of patients [85.8%; 95% CI: 84.8 - 86.8] were also given complete treatment including anti-relapse course, in line with national guidelines. About one third [35.0%; 95% CI: 33.6 - 36.4] of uncomplicated malaria cases were treated more than 48 hours after first symptoms onset. Correspondingly, half of severe malaria cases took recommended anti-malarial drugs for severe or complicated disease more than 48 hours of onset of first symptoms. The latter cases had given regular anti-malarial drugs promptly.The majority of malaria epidemics [97%; 95% CI: 90.6 - 100] in study areas were detected within one week of onset, but only half of epidemics were controlled within four weeks of detection. Just half of target districts had at least one health facility/emergency site with adequate supply and equipment stocks. Nevertheless, only one-third of them [33% (95% CI: 0.00 - 67.8)] had updated inventory of malaria foci on quarterly basis.ConclusionTo sum up, malaria case management still constitutes a public health problem in Iran. Additionally, data suggest scarcity in management and evaluation of malaria foci, detection and control of malaria epidemics as well as assignment of emergency sites across different regions of the country. Consequently, massive and substantial investments need to be made at the Ministry of Health to coordinate national malaria control programmes towards achieving determined goals and targets.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Raiesi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.