ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Zambia has made profound strides in reducing both the incidence and prevalence of malaria followed by reducing malaria related deaths between 2009 and 2018. The number of partners providing malaria funding has significantly increased in the same period. The increasing number of partners and the subsequent reduction of the number of reported malaria cases in the Ministry of Health main data repository Health Management Information System (HMIS) stimulated this research. The study aimed at (1) identifying major sources of malaria funding in Zambia; (2) describe malaria funding per targeted interventions and (3) relating malaria funding with malaria disease burden. METHODS: Data was collected using extensive literature review of institutional strategic document between the year 2009 to 2018, assuming one-year time lag between investment and the health outcome across all interventions. The National's Health Management Information System (HMIS) provided information on annual malaria admission cases and outpatient clinic record. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) alongside Microsoft excel was used to analyze data in the year 2019. RESULTS: The investigation observed that about 30% of the funding came from PMI/USAID, 26% from the global funds, the government of Zambia contributed 17% and other partners sharing the remaining 27%. Multivariate regression analysis suggests a positive correlation between reducing reported malaria disease burden in HMIS 2009-2018 and concurrent increasing program/intervention funding towards ITNs, IRS, MDA, and Case Management with r2 = 77% (r2 > 0.77; 95% CI: 0.72-0.81). Furthermore, IRS showed a p-value 0.018 while ITNs, Case Management and MDA having 0.029, 0.030 and 0.040 respectively. CONCLUSION: Our findings highlight annual funding towards specific malaria intervention reduced the number of malaria admission cases.
ABSTRACT
The infection rate of Oncomelania snails, emergence rate of Schistosoma japa-nicum cercariae, number of emerged cercariae and survival time of infected snails were observed experimentally by exposing single snails to different number of miracidia (i.e. 1, 5, 10, 20 and 40 respectively). The infection rate of snails was shown to be increased with the increasing number of miracidia. The frequency of cercaria emergence of infected snails varied significantly in different seasons and the highest was in spring and summer. No cercaria emergence was observed in winter. The average number of cercariae emerged from a single infected snail in each observation was 70.67, and through the whole lifetime in this experiment, 1,148.85?96.29. There was no significant difference in average number of emerged cercariae among the 5 groups of infected snails. The maximum number of cercariae emerged from one infected snail was 8,079. Calculated from the begining of cercaria emergence, the survival time of infected snails was in average 118.28?9.94 days, and the longest being 839 days. There was no significant difference in survival time among the 5 groups, and 94.8% infected snails died within one year.
