Malaria Training

Training African Healthcare Workers in Malaria Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment

In 2005, Accordia Global Health Foundation expanded IDI’s training program offerings by launching the Joint Uganda Malaria Training Program (JUMP) in partnership with ExxonMobil’s Africa Health Initiative. This exemplary training program executed in partnership with the Uganda Malaria Surveillance Project, experts from the University of California San Francisco and other institutes, builds capacity among African healthcare workers in malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. By the end of 2008, over 800 healthcare workers had completed JUMP’s multidisciplinary team-based malaria training at IDI.

Malaria is a devastating disease causing death and illness worldwide. It is a treatable disease that takes a child’s life every 30 seconds, and kills over one million people each year. In sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for over 90 percent of all malaria cases worldwide, the disease is particularly brutal on the young – children under 5 years old account for nearly 20 percent of all deaths across the continent. The crisis has grown with the AIDS epidemic: HIV and malaria each appear to make the other worse, by accelerating the course of AIDS and by increasing the frequency and severity of malarial attacks. There are effective drugs to treat malaria if administered properly, but misuse and overuse can quickly lead to resistance. There is a critical need to expand healthcare capacity to optimally diagnose and treat malaria.

JUMP takes an innovative approach to training healthcare professionals in improved malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, by working directly with entire treatment teams at the health facility level and by building the skill sets of all clinic professionals, from medical officers to data entry clerks. JUMP then provides ongoing support and supervision to ensure the implementation of improved skills and practices, through its Mobile Support Teams, which also conduct additional training. The result for the clinic is a more effective staff and a more sustainable system of improved malaria care for its patients.

The Joint Uganda Malaria Training Program also includes novel Mobile Support and On-Going Education Teams that provide assistance to course graduates after they return to their community facilities, help graduates conduct less formal secondary training programs for their peers and colleagues, and collect data to evaluate JUMP’s impact on local health outcomes. This concept proved so effective, that it will also be employed in the Laboratory Training Program and is being considered for IDI’s HIV/AIDS Training Program as well.

In 2007, Accordia and ExxonMobil once again joined forces to improve malaria treatment and diagnosis. ExxonMobil funded an operational research program designed to evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of an on-site training program incorporating rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) as compared with standard-of-care presumptive treatment, for the management of patients who present with suspected malaria at peripheral health centers in Uganda. Preliminary results indicate that this training substantially reduces the proportion of patients prescribed an antimalarial without adversely affecting outcomes and that substantial cost savings could be achieved by scaling up this program in Uganda. Further research is planned to test the model in other African countries.