Expansion of malaria surveillance along eastern, western and southern borders of Thailand

Objectives

The key activities of this project will be:

• Work with the provincial public health office (PHO) and local hospital management teams to get a summary of existing facilities and identify gaps.
• Organize workshop with public health staff to share benefits and how-tos from existing Malaria Elimination Taskforce (timely case reporting, elements of case investigation, organization of RACD).
• Set up a data circulation system allowing timely reporting to PHO (through the Malaria on line system) and ensure these data are locally analyzed (through basic epidemiology training).
• Support pregnant women (migrant and ethnic Karens) surveillance, through monthly malaria smears and hematocrit surveillance during pregnancy. 
• Set up strong public engagement activities (access to BCC).
• Support vector assessment, with training sessions and sharing entomology protocols.
• Train all village health workers and hospital medics to take blood spots dried on filter paper (resistance determination).
• Identify specific gene mutations related to resistance.
• Map the trends of the resistances (K13 mutations) and communicate them to authorities.
• Conduct ultrasensitive RDT (usRDT) prevalence surveys in high-incidence areas in order to pilot priorities.