Maputo ‒ Filipe Basílio, officer responsible of monitoring and overview in Mozambique’s malaria programme within the northern Nampula Province recalls the laborious assignment of recordsdata collection and analysis in his day-to-day work: “All record-keeping tools were manual and it used to take a long time for the data to reach the Ministry, because community distributors had to submit their reports at the end of the day to their supervisor, who would then forward them to the district level, then to the provincial level, and only after that would the Ministry receive the information,” he says.
The country’s Ministry of Health faced an enormous challenge of dealing with large volumes of data from several different areas of its malaria control programme. Health authorities were overwhelmed with large volumes of data from several different sources, making data collection and analysis scattered and slow, and in turn diminishing their ability to rapidly respond to the needs of communities.
To address this challenge, in 2022, the Ministry of Health created a data repository called the Integrated Malaria Information System. By integrating its major data systems – campaign data, supervision data, epidemiological data, and entomological data – and linked them to a visual and user-friendly dashboard, the Ministry could receive data in real-time from the field, improving its quality.
Then, in 2023, the country moved to digitalize malaria campaigns. It started with mosquito net distribution campaigns, then seasonal malaria chemoprevention, and finally indoor residual spraying campaigns. All three are now fully digitalized and integrated. A user can log in and see all campaign information, including coverage and performance, which makes analysis much easier. Results were almost immediate. Campaign duration dropped from 7–14 days to just five.
“We analyse data and know what’s happening in real time,” says Dr Baltazar Candrinho, Director of the National Malaria Control Programme in Mozambique. “We no longer need to wait for someone to report a problem days later. We can track coverage and team performance and monitor stock levels. If a village hasn’t received nets or hasn’t been reached, we know exactly where it is using GPS.”
The ministry trained its staff in all 11 provinces, and they subsequently cascaded the training to community distributors, who conduct interviews and gather data in their communities. The aim is to improve the collection and analysis of data for decision-making at the district level.
“At the central level, we already use these data for decision-making, but districts need to do the same. It’s a process of shifting mindset,” says Dr Candrinho. In terms of collecting, managing and storying data, Mozambique is among the most advanced malaria programmes globally and is one of the only countries to have all three of its malaria campaigns fully digitalized.
“In the first year of introducing digitalization, it was a challenge to find community distributors who were comfortable using mobile devices, as many had limited education,” says Basílio. “But with training, things have changed. Nowadays, people in the community actually ask to become distributors because they’re interested in the digital process.”
Mozambique leads Africa in malaria digitalization, environment a benchmark for regional successfully being innovation. “As we put in drive the enticing in on advancing state of national malaria recordsdata repositories, Mozambique will present treasured classes and most efficient practices, guiding what worked and why as we scale to other countries”, declare Dr Lawrence Kazembe, crew chief for Precision Public Well being Programme at the WHO Regional Suppose of commercial for Africa who is enforcing identical enhancements in other African countries.
Malaria is endemic in Mozambique, accounting for 3.4% of malaria instances globally and is the fifth very top country globally by manner of total case numbers. In 2024, over 11 million instances enjoy been reported by the country, placing the total population at risk, with the wonderful prevalence of the disease within the north and alongside the Indian Ocean cruise.
In 2024, the country utilized three malaria campaigns the usage of the digital assignment, a step against gaining an even more comprehensive working out of the disease burden, collectively with mortality patterns across all communities for the length of the country.
“By way of WHO-led excessive burden to excessive affect initiative, we advocated and supported recordsdata driven planning and supplied frameworks for malaria surveillance, recordsdata analytics and advice on align recordsdata digitalization to decision making processes essentially based fully mostly on WHO pointers,” says Dr Eva de Carvalho, clinical officer accountable for malaria in WHO Mozambique.
Digitalization uses evidence from more than one recordsdata sources to be obvious that an environment pleasant allocation of sources to basically the most affected communities and prone populations. It facilitates programme overview and improves its performance. It’s an capability the country plans to make exercise of for other areas of its successfully being response and this has already begun with the unnoticed tropical diseases programme. Within the waste, this will enjoy an affect on the successfully being outcomes of the finish user – folks. “Within the finish, if we’re more environment pleasant, the crew in actual fact advantages,” says Dr Candrinho.
