News Release

Prioritizing pregnant women in malaria endemic regions for bed nets from clinics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Donors, Ministries of Health, implementing agencies, and other partners should prioritise providing pregnant women in malaria endemic regions with long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) through antenatal care clinics to help prevent malaria and its adverse effects on mother and infant, according to experts from the UK and US, writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Jenny Hill, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and colleagues from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and the Malaria Control and Elimination Program at PATH in Seattle, explain that LLINs are a powerful public health tool to help improve maternal, neonatal, and infant health but that the use of these nets is well below national and international targets.

The authors argue that routine antenatal care (ANC) services are an important delivery channel that ensures that pregnant women who attend an ANC clinic have use of a LLIN from their first ANC visit in each pregnancy. Unfortunately, although LLINs should be routinely delivered to pregnant women through ANC clinics, the nets are sometimes re-allocated to population-wide campaigns leaving pregnant women and their babies at risk of malaria.

The authors say: "Receiving a net as an integral part of antenatal care and sends a powerful message to a pregnant woman that this tool is important to protect herself and her child. "

They continue: "Going forward, national malaria programmes and donors alike need to ensure that routine LLIN distribution through antenatal clinics continue un-interrupted during national campaigns, and where funding or supplies of LLINs is limited, they will have to make difficult decisions to balance costs with the benefits and impact of LLINs."

The authors add: "Where choices must be made, high-risk groups (pregnant women and children under 5 years of age) should be prioritized."

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Funding

This study was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of USAID/JHU Cooperative Agreement No. GHS-A-00-09-00014-00 for the NetWorks Project. The contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation

Hill J, Hoyt J, van Eijk AM, ter Kuile FO, Webster J, et al. (2014) Prioritizing Pregnant Women for Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets through Antenatal Care Clinics. PLoS Med 11(9): e1001717.doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001717

Contact

Jenny Hill
Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium Secretariat
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
United Kingdom
+44 7732 161 353
jenny.hill@lstmed.ac.uk


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