Greater Mekong Subregion Elimination of Malaria through Surveillance
The Greater Mekong Subregion Elimination of Malaria through Surveillance program (GEMS) supports diverse private sector outlets to correctly test, treat and report malaria cases to accelerate malaria elimination in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) have successfully brought down the number of malaria cases in the region over recent years and elimination is now in sight. This goal is urgent: the drugs and insecticides we use to fight malaria are losing their effectiveness and the GMS has historically been the epicenter for drug resistance. Malaria needs to be eliminated before it is too late for Asia, and before resistance spreads to Africa where malaria continues to take hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
GEMS takes a unique approach to malaria elimination:
In 2018, GEMS achieved the following health impact:
malaria tests conducted
malaria cases detected, treated and reported
Private outlets supported
In Southeast Asia, between 40-70% of the population first seek health care in the private sector, meaning that private providers potentially see most of the malaria cases in the region. It is therefore critical that private sector outlets are able to test for malaria, and are stocked with the right drugs in order to provide correct treatment.
PSI works with the private providers that at-risk communities trust most. This includes doctors working at registered private clinics and pharmacies, as well as community health volunteers and non-formal outlets that can be a significant source of drugs and advice in some areas. To reach some of the most at-risk groups, GEMS has a network of malaria volunteers on large worksites near forested areas where many marginalized and mobile workers are based, often far from any other health facility.
Malaria elimination will fail without surveillance, and surveillance is incomplete without including data from the private sector. Without it, the government is not seeing the full picture.
PSI uses DHIS2, which is an open-source software allowing for greater access to data, and tools to help visualize data and automatically generate indicator calculations and reports. More information on DHIS2 can be found here.
| Between 2008-2016, ACTwatch conducted outlet surveys, household surveys and supply chain research to better understand the market for and use of anti-malarial drugs and rapid diagnostic tests. The data is available here. |
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PSI has developed an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to improve preparedness and response to all public health emergencies, including malaria.
To follow national elimination surveillance protocol, 67 PSI private physicians were trained on SMS reporting within 24 hours of case notification.
PSI partnered with the Medical Anthropology Unit of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp (ITM) to conduct an anthropological study of forest-going communities to get deeper insight into their behaviors and barriers to health.
After Empathy-Insights-Prototyping (EIP) exercises with forest-goers, PSI is implementing mobile malaria workers on 166 worksites.
