Communication for Malaria Prevention and Treatment
Each year, as many as 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, leading to one million deaths, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of malaria deaths occur in Africa, especially in remote rural areas with poor access to health services. Malaria is especially dangerous for pregnant women and their unborn children. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria infection is estimated to cause 400,000 cases of severe maternal anaemia and 75,000–200,000 infant deaths annually (Jhpiego news release for Africa Malaria Day 2007)
This issue of The Soul Beat contains experiences, strategic thinking documents and resource materials which highlight how communication strategies involving advocacy, social marketing, community participation, multi-media initiatives, and the media can contribute to the prevention and treatment of malaria in Africa.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please contact soulbeat@comminit.com
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1. Voices for a Malaria Free Future - Mali
In 2007, Voices for a Malaria-Free Future was involved in and supported two campaigns in Mali. One was an advocacy campaign which took place from July-October 2007, and the other was the Ministry of Health’s integrated campaign, which provided measles and polio vaccinations, deworming medication, Vitamin A, and insecticide treated nets to over 2.8 million children and 160,000 women post-partum. As part the advocacy and awareness-raising activities, the campaigns used Malian music personalities to address decision makers, and promoted messages through songs specifically produced by Malian musicians for the campaigns.
Contact Claudia Vondrasek cvondras@jhuccp.org
2. Malaria No More - Make Your Mark - Africa, North America
This is a United States-based organisation that works to raise the profile of malaria among the public, policymakers, and businesses, while engaging the private sector to provide life-saving bed nets and other critical interventions to families in Africa. It intends to raise awareness about malaria and malaria prevention both in Africa and among North Americans. As part of the campaign and in order to include young people, Malaria No More developed a "Make Your Mark" website which includes resources to help young people become active around malaria issues, as well as educational materials for use in schools.
Contact info@malarianomore.org
3. African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) - Africa
Launched in 2006, this network seeks to promote malaria research communication in Africa by strengthening the capacity of African journalists through training. The network of African journalists and scientists focuses on disseminating information on malaria control initiatives and monitors and advocates for the implementation of malaria policies in Africa.
Contact Charity Binka cbinka@gmail.com OR ammren1@yahoo.com AND WOMEC womec@hotmail.com
4. National Malaria Control Programme - Tanzania
Launched in 2007 by Tanzania's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW), the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) aims to improve malaria treatment and awareness in Tanzania through a multi-media campaign which involves television, radio, posters, and music to promote and improve malaria treatment a
wareness.
Contact Dr. Desmond Chavasse chavasse@psimalaria.org OR Ministry of Health and Social Welfare moh@moh.go.tz OR Tanzania Food and Drug Authority (TFDA) info@tfda.or.tz
5. Mobilize Against Malaria - Kenya, Ghana and Senegal
Launched in 2007 by Pfizer, Mobilize Against Malaria is a 5-year initiative in Kenya, Ghana, and Senegal that aims to engage and educate treatment providers and patients to improve the use and effectiveness of malaria treatment and patient adherence. Working in collaboration with implementing partners in each of the countries, the initiative focuses on training and building capacity, as well as providing grants, evaluation support, and technical expertise.
Contact Imraan Munshi Imraan.Munshi@pfizer.com
6. Voices for a Malaria-Free Future - Ghana
The Voices for a Malaria-Free Future project in Ghana aims to mobilise leadership in government and civil society to become involved in malaria programmes, enhance district-level advocacy, improve policy dissemination and reduce barriers to policy implementation, and advocate for increased funding for malaria in the country. The project aims to achieve this mainly through television and radio spots and the production of print materials to build capacity for advocacy.
Contact Claudia Vondrasek cvondras@jhuccp.org
7. An Exploratory Study of Community Factors Relevant for Participatory Malaria Control on Rusinga Island, Western Kenya
by Pamela Opiyo, W Richard Mukabana, Ibrahim Kiche, Evan Mathenge, Gerry F Killeen, and Ulrike Fillinger
According to the authors, the involvement and active participation of communities has been identified as a key factor for success of malaria control in rural environments. Through an exploratory study, this research evaluates community factors relevant for participatory malaria control on Rusinga Island, western Kenya. Results showed that, though malaria is considered one of the major threats to life, there is little effective knowledge of malaria prevention, including causal knowledge of the transmission cycle. Misconceptions about malaria and distrust of messages from 'outside' were consistent with those found elsewhere in Africa.
8. Understanding and Improving Access to Prompt and Effective Malaria Treatment and Care in Rural Tanzania: the ACCESS Programme
by Manuel W Hetzel, Nelly Iteba, Ahmed Makemba, Christopher Mshana, Christian Lengeler, Brigit Obrist, Alexander Schulze, Rose Nathan, Angel Dillip, Iddy Mayumana, Rashid A Khatib, Joseph D Njau, and Hassan Mshinda
This projected research on malaria interventions is designed to evaluate the ACCESS programme, a programme intending to understand and improve access to prompt and effective malaria treatment and care in a rural Tanzanian setting. The programme's strategy, as stated in the document, "is based on a set of integrated interventions, including social marketing for improved care seeking at the community level as well as strengthening of quality of care at health facilities. This is complemented by a project that aims to improve the performance of drug stores." The document describes the programme and its baseline study in preparation for extended monitoring and evaluation.
9. Role of Information and Communication Networks in Malaria Survival
by Pallab Mozumder and Achla Marathe
This research investigates the impact of information and communication network (ICN) density variables on malaria death probability. It pools data from 70 different countries to construct a panel dataset of health and socio-economic variables for a time span of 1960-2004 to study the effects of the density of telephone lines and television sets in malaria-exposed populations to see if ICN density improves the effectiveness of existing resources for malaria prevention and treatment. The major finding of this research is that the intensity of ICN is associated with reduced probability of deaths of people that are clinically identified as malaria-infected.
10. Participatory Communication in Malaria Control: Why Does It Matter?
by Alison Dunn
This paper explores how community-level communication can engage the most vulnerable people - such as children under 5 years of age and women in the economically poorest communities in Africa - in strategies to prevent and treat malaria. It is based on the premise that current malaria control strategies rely predominantly on individuals and communities to take action to protect and treat themselves, such as using insecticide-treated bed nets and (as is sometimes the case) impregnating them at timely intervals, often at the user's expense. The author argues that such strategies will only succeed, if there is effective, contextual communication and genuine understanding around the causes, symptoms, and means of preventing and treating malaria.
11. The Economics of Social Marketing: The Case of Mosquito Nets in Tanzania
by Nassor Kikumbih, Kara Hanson, Anne Mills, Hadji Mponda, and Joanna A. Schellenberg
This article offers an economic analysis of a social marketing project for insecticide-treated mosquito nets distribution in Tanzania. The main focal point is the ways in which social marketing can stimulate demand for nets - a public sector input, and encourage the growth of product supplies - a private sector output with public health impact. Instead of focusing on the cost-benefit aspect of social marketing, the present study investigates the economics of social marketing, by asking two key questions: how does social marketing affect the market for nets (i.e., price and coverage)?; and what does the added cost of social marketing "buy" in terms of coverage and equity, compared with an unassisted commercial sector model?
12. The Social Marketing of Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs) in Kenya: Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing
by Dana Tilson
This paper explores the work of Population Services International (PSI), an organisation that uses social marketing in Kenya to promote insecticide treated nets (ITNs) to prevent malaria. According to the report, the goal of social marketing is to promote healthy behaviour among low-income and underserved people in order to increase their standard of living and quality of life. Social marketing utilises a variety of private sector practices, such as commercial distribution of branded health products and services, mass media, and a range of behaviour change communications (BCC) techniques to achieve this goal.
13. Spot On Malaria: A Guide to Adapting, Developing and Producing Effective Radio Spots
by Cate Cowan and Lonna Shafritz
This guide focuses on malaria prevention and treatment messages and ways to tailor them to reach communities often missed by national malaria programmes. It shows how to adapt or localise materials from national malaria programmes and how to create original radio spots or advertisements to respond to local needs. The guide also offers tools to help navigate the production process.
14. Malaria in Pregnancy Resource Package
This online resource package published by Jhpiego, an international non-profit health organisation affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, is designed for policy-makers, public health professionals, and managers who are implementing, scaling up, or updating programmes designed to reduce malaria in pregnancy and provide effective treatment for pregnant women with malaria. The resource package includes training resources, programming resources, and reference materials, all free to download, which intend to be easily adapted to a specific country’s public health context.
15. Ghana Malaria Advocacy Guide - A Guide to the Promotion of Advocacy for Malaria Control Programs in Ghana
This guide, published by Voices for a Malaria Free Future in Ghana, is designed to help malaria advocates clearly understand the concept of advocacy and master the knowledge and skills required to successfully operate as effective malaria advocates. The guide is designed to provide basic information about malaria in Ghana, and gives practical examples of how some of the key concepts in advocacy are being used. It intends to help users think about what advocacy roles are best suited to their organisational or individual capacity and advises on formats that could be used to present advocacy messages.
16. A Guide to Gender and Malaria Resources
This guide, published by Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership and Kvinnoforum, provides information on how gendered biological and social differences affect women both as malaria sufferers and as principal caregivers. It looks at patterns of exposure resulting from occupation and role in the family, malaria problems specific to pregnancy, and malaria and HIV/AIDS. The guide also offers recommendations and identifies gaps in three areas: policy, research, and implementation.
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For related previous issues of The Soul Beat see:
The Soul Beat 33 - Malaria Communication
The Soul Beat 62 - MDG # 6 - Combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Click here to view archived editions of The Soul Beat Newsletter.
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