A promise of lowering malaria infection rate is evident in communities that benefit from phase two of the China-Tanzania Malaria project in Kibiti, Kilwa and Rufiji districts in Coast Region of Tanzania. Malaria is endemic in the three districts in the lower reaches of the Rufiji. More than 269,000 people are direct beneficiaries of the project.

The country office of the World Health Organization is the technical evaluator of the project, which is part of the global High Burden High Impact Initiative to roll back malaria.

The project was designed based on a ‘1-3-7 malaria surveillance and response’ model that was successfully applied to lower the burden of malaria in China. This program utilizes malaria infection rate data taken weekly from the routine HMIS at health facilities and vector surveillance results to select locations to test and treat individuals.

A team of malaria testers visit locations pre-identified as having high malaria incidence ratio. They test asymptomatic and symptomatic villagers and those found positive get a dose of antimalarials.

The first phase of the project ran from April 2015 to June 2018; the current phase that began in July 2019 will end in June 2021.

Rufiji District Medical Officer (DMO), Dr. Ali Zuberi Mbikilwa relates the decrease in malaria prevalence in his jurisdiction to the implementation of the project. Malaria prevalence in Rufiji district declined from 12% to 7.3% based on data from National Malaria Survey 2015 and School Malaria Parasitology Survey conducted in 2019 respectively. However, these are not results of the project.

“We hope that the project will have lower malaria infections rates below current rates,” said Dr. Khalfan Elikizemba.

The World Health Organization Tanzania country office is following closely the efficacy of the collaborative project. Its results will determine usefulness of the approach in other communities where malaria infections are still high.

According to Dr. Elikizemba, the DMO in Kilwa, the key issue is devising how to integrate workable aspects of the externally funded project into the district’s Comprehensive Council Health Plan (CCHP).

“For instance, people now understand that it is beneficial to check for malaria when they do not have symptoms. We need to incorporate that attitude in our behavior change communications and our plans to roll back malaria,” said Dr. Elikizemba.

The promise of lowered malaria incidence rate is reflected among community members that witness decreased malaria bouts in their households. Mwajuma Bakari Kipinga, a mother of four noted that her daughter, Salha, has consistently attended lessons in 2020 contrary to previous years when malaria frequently interrupted her school routine.

WHO reported that in 2018 globally the progress in reducing the burden of malaria stalled, mainly because 10 high burden countries still contributed up to 55 percent of the more than 219 million cases.

WHO is implementing a global initiative aimed at promoting high impact in combating transmission of malaria in high burden countries including Tanzania.

Malaria remains one of the world’s leading killers, claiming the life of one child every two minutes. Most of these deaths are in Africa, where more than 250 000 children die from the disease every year. Children under 5 are at greatest risk of its life-threatening complications. Worldwide, malaria kills 435, 000 people a year, most of them children.