Abstract
WHY STUDY ANTIMALARIALS IN ZAMBIA?
Malaria is the leading cause of child mortality under the age of five and the third leading cause of both morbidity and mortality in Zambia. People living in rural areas of Zambia are the most susceptible to malaria.
The Zambia National Malaria Control Strategy relies on a set of proven interventions for prevention and case management to effectively reduce the malaria burden. These include training and equipping facilitybased and community-based health workers to provide malaria testing and appropriate treatment, and provision of free Artemisinin based Combination Therapy (ACT) and malaria diagnosis in the public health system.
Increasing access to quality-assured ACT is an important intervention for reducing malaria mortality today. A key challenge to improving access to ACT is the lack of evidence on antimalarial markets. Understanding what types of antimalarials are available across both the public and private sector, as well as malaria diagnostic availability will provide an understanding of the performance of different markets and identify gaps and needs in the current health system. The ACTwatch project is designed to provide such antimalarial market intelligence.
The ACTwatch evidence can be used to inform national strategic policies aimed at improving malaria case management and making progress towards national goals for malaria elimination.
