Malaria in Middle Childhood and Adolescence

Brooker, Simon; Clarke, Siân E.; Fernando, Deepika; Gitonga, Caroline W.; Nankabirwa, Joaniter I.; Schellenberg, David; Greenwood, Brian

doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0423-6_ch14

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 76 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, malaria and worm infections reduce school attendance and are a leading cause of anaemia, which can negatively affect cognition and sustained attention. 62,63 Health interventions to prevent or treat infectious disease can have a positive effect on learning and in turn generate longterm economic bene fits in the form of higher earnings. 62,[64][65][66][67] These synergies suggest that health and education are two sides of the same coin.…”

Section: Investments In Children's Health and Education Are Highly Comentioning

confidence: 99%

“…62,63 Health interventions to prevent or treat infectious disease can have a positive effect on learning and in turn generate longterm economic bene fits in the form of higher earnings. 62,[64][65][66][67] These synergies suggest that health and education are two sides of the same coin. A global investment case for adolescents 68 shows that investing in strategies to reduce child marriage and road accidents will also generate benefits that far exceed costs (figure 2).…”

Section: Investments In Children's Health and Education Are Highly Comentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A future for the world's children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission

Clark¹,

Coll-Seck

Banerjee³

et al. 2020

The Lancet

735

597

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over recent decades, today's children face an uncertain future. Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country. In 2015, the world's countries agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet nearly 5 years later, few countries have recorded much progress towards achieving them. This Commission presents the case for placing children, aged 0-18 years, at the centre of the SDGs: at the heart of the concept of sustainability and our shared human endeavour. Governments must harness coalitions across sectors to overcome ecological and commercial pressures to ensure children receive their rights and entitlements now and a liveable planet in the years to come.

show abstract

Section: Investments In Children's Health and Education Are Highly Comentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Investments In Children's Health and Education Are Highly Comentioning

confidence: 99%

A future for the world's children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission

Clark¹,

Coll-Seck

Banerjee³

et al. 2020

The Lancet

735

597

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A 2017 review described a range of strategies aimed at reducing the burden of malaria among school-aged children,15 16 including using antimalarial drugs for prevention, as well as case management within the school context 7 17 18. Case management evaluations in Ghana, Malawi and Tanzania demonstrated teachers can effectively deliver presumptive malaria treatment in schools 19–21.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of school-based malaria case management on school attendance, health and education outcomes: a cluster randomised trial in southern Malawi

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionEvidence indicates children who suffer from ill-health are less likely to attend or complete schooling. Malaria is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in school-age children. However, they are less likely to receive malaria treatment at health facilities and evidence for how to improve schoolchildren’s access to care is limited. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a programme of school-based malaria case management on schoolchildren’s attendance, health and education.MethodsA cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted in 58 primary schools in Zomba District, Malawi, 2011–2015. The intervention, implemented in 29 randomly selected schools, provided malaria rapid diagnostic tests and artemisinin-based combination therapy to diagnose and treat uncomplicated malaria as part of basic first aid kits known as ‘Learner Treatment Kits’ (LTK). The primary outcome was school attendance, assessed through teacher-recorded daily attendance registers and independent periodic attendance spot checks. Secondary outcomes included prevalence of Plasmodium spp infection, anaemia, educational performance, self-reported child well-being and health-seeking behaviour. A total of 9571 children from standards 1–7 were randomly selected for assessment of school attendance, with subsamples assessed for the secondary outcomes.ResultsBetween November 2013 and March 2015, 97 trained teachers in 29 schools provided 32 685 unique consultations. Female schoolchildren were significantly more likely than male to seek a consultation (unadjusted OR=1.78 (95% CI 1.58 to 2.00). No significant intervention effect was observed on the proportion of child-days recorded as absent in teacher registers (n=9017 OR=0.90 (95% CI 0.77 to 1.05), p=0.173) or of children absent during random school visits—spot checks (n=5791 OR=1.09 (95% CI 0.87 to 1.36), p=0.474). There was no significant impact on child-reported well-being, prevalence of Plasmodium spp, anaemia or education scores.ConclusionDespite high community demand, the LTK programme did not reduce schoolchildren’s absenteeism or improve health or education outcomes in this study setting.Trial registration numberClinicalTrials.gov NCT02213211.

show abstract

“…Moreover, as malaria control interventions are scaled-up, and transmission intensity and consequently the level of acquired immunity in the population fall, the peak age of clinical malaria may shift from the very young, to include older school-aged children [16]. Thus, malaria morbidity and mortality may paradoxically rise in school-aged children as malaria is controlled, highlighting the need to focus on this age group as malaria control intensifies [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria delivered to primary schoolchildren provided effective individual protection in Jinja, Uganda: secondary outcomes of a cluster-randomized trial (START-IPT)

Rehman

Maiteki‐Sebuguzi

Gonahasa

et al. 2019

Malar J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) of malaria is recommended as policy for certain high-risk populations, but not currently for schoolchildren. A cluster-randomized trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of IPT with dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine (DP) on primary schoolchildren in Jinja, Uganda. Results of the impact of IPT of schoolchildren on community-level transmission have been reported previously. Here, secondary outcomes from a school-based survey are presented. Methods Eighty-four clusters (one primary school plus 100 households) were randomized to intervention and control (1:1 ratio). Participants from intervention schools received monthly IPT with DP for up to 6 rounds (June–December 2014). At endline (November–December 2014), randomly selected children from all 84 schools were surveyed (13 per school) and thick blood smears were done. Those with fever or history of fever were tested with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria. Haemoglobin was measured in every fifth participant. Outcome measures included prevalence of asexual parasites and gametocytes (by microscopy), and prevalence of anaemia. Prevalence outcomes were analysed using generalized linear Poisson models with log link function, incorporating a cluster-level random intercept and quantified using prevalence risk ratios. Results Among 23,280 students listed on the 42 intervention school registers, 10,079 (43.3%) aged 5–20 years were enrolled into the IPT intervention and received at least one dose of DP; of these, 9286 (92.1%) received at least one full (3-day) course. In total, 1092 children were enrolled into the final school survey (546 per arm) and had a thick blood smear done; of these, 255 had haemoglobin measured (129 intervention, 126 control). Children in the intervention arm were less likely to have asexual parasites (9.2% intervention vs 44.1% control, adjusted risk ratio [aRR] 0.22 [95% CI 0.16–0.30] p < 0.001), gametocytes (3.1% intervention vs 9.5% control, aRR 0.34 [95% CI 0.20–0.56] p < 0.001), fever (20.2% intervention vs 56.2% control, aRR 0.35 [95% CI 0.25–0.50] p < 0.001), or symptomatic malaria (5.1% intervention vs 35.7% control, aRR 0.14 [95% CI 0.08–0.26] p < 0.001). Prevalence of anaemia and mean haemoglobin were similar in both study arms. Conclusions School-aged children are a major reservoir of malaria parasites. Delivering IPT to schoolchildren would benefit individual children and may reduce transmission. School-based IPT could help to intensify malaria control toward elimination, and should be considered for policies and programmes. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02009215), Registered 11 December 2013. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02009215

show abstract

Malaria in Middle Childhood and Adolescence

Cited by 16 publications

References 76 publications

A future for the world's children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission

A future for the world's children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission

Impact of school-based malaria case management on school attendance, health and education outcomes: a cluster randomised trial in southern Malawi

Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria delivered to primary schoolchildren provided effective individual protection in Jinja, Uganda: secondary outcomes of a cluster-randomized trial (START-IPT)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About