Front. Public Health

Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention

Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1465228

Provisionally accepted

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Objectives: Surveillance is the backbone for the control of malaria and its elimination. In the state of Gujarat, situated in western region in India, some districts reported high annual blood examination rate (ABER) for malaria. Therefore, a study was conducted to identify the underlying reasons for the increase in ABER. Methods: Planned investigations were carried out in three of the state districts, scrutinising records of malaria forms and other epidemiological data collected during health worker surveillance by, assessment of laboratory services, and rapid fever surveys. Results: Fever rate ranged from 8%- 57% in Primary Health Centres surveyed. Analysis of epidemiological data revealed that malaria parasite positivity was more from passive than active surveillance. Increased ABER was accounted for by multiple factors, including blood slides collected during the mass survey and contact smears, which included in ABER and not mentioned separately. Blood slides prepared for the migrant population were included in ABER but the migrant population was not counted while calculating ABER. Conclusion: ABER in villages surveyed was varying from 1.6 to 78% which is mainly due to indiscriminate preparation of blood slides i.e. without fever symptoms. Addressing the key gaps identified in data recording may aid channelizing the limited resources efficiently and thereby progressing towards malaria elimination. Adequate surveillance activities complemented with systematic data recording will help in critical information-based timely decisions in appropriately channelizing the resources and will lead towards malaria elimination in the state.

Keywords: Malaria surveillance, Active case detection, passive surveillance, annual blood examination rate (ABER), assessment of laboratory services

Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2024.

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