Towards malaria elimination: innovative tools for malaria surveillance in Cambodia
The Malaria Consortium has published ‘Moving towards malaria elimination: developing innovative tools for malaria surveillance in Cambodia’ as part of their ‘Learning Paper’ series.
The paper describes the collaborative, systems approach to real-time malaria data for direct action. Including village malaria workers, a malaria information system, and referrals. See page 20 & 21 for challenges and 12 lessons learned.
- If a system does not work manually, technology is unlikely to help
- Use existing sources of data as much as possible, and add only to the data collection work of health workers if absolutely necessary
- Keep it simple
- Smaller systems may be better than a single big single
- Decentralise the surveillance system to a level where decisions are made
- Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and training
- Consider mobile-based solutions only for situations where real-time data is required and/or immediate action is required
- Try to make the system free for the users by working with the telecoms companies
- Keep codes simple
- Systems must be compatible with each other
- There must be feedback
- Consider using off the shelf solutions for prototyping.
Read the paper Moving towards malaria elimination: developing innovative tools for malaria surveillance in Cambodia here.
