Description
Introduction
Malaria morbidity in pregnancy is still very high in Sub-Saharan Africa especially in Cameroon. Data availability is important to inform interventions for malaria and intervention strategies. However, generating, reliable, actionable, and consistent data to inform malaria intervention and indicators and intervention is still a major issue in Cameroon. This pilot assessment study demonstrates the role of digital platforms in improving malaria prevention and management in pregnancy.
Methodology
The BornFyne-PNMS digital platform was installed in 9 health facilities across four rural health districts in the French and English region from February 2023 to September 2023. The digital platform integrates components of the WHO digital adaptation kit for antenatal care. The platform prompts provider to enter data related to malaria risk factors for example, sleeping under mosquito net (MN), Intermittent Preventive Treatment in Pregnancy (IPTp), and malaria diagnosis. The system uses a decision tree to stratify pregnant women into various risk levels to alert the health provider for example, a high risk level denoted by combination of three risk stratification variables (Age; Sleeping under mosquito net, History of Pre-eclampsia, adherence to IPTp).
Results
438 women were enrolled across the 9 health facilities. The mean start month for ANC by most women based on data collected was 4 months. 8% (35/438) were high risk pregnancy. 81.05% (355/438) reported to have mosquito net, but 10.73% (47/438) doesn’t sleep under MN. 62.33% slept under MN the day before the visit. 76.03% were on IPTp.
Innovative aspects: what does this mean to stakeholder?
The BornFyne-PNMS digital platform is one of the first digital platform introduced at health facilities in rural settings to support health providers in using digital platform to deliver antenatal care. The results were presented to stakeholders and it stimulated further discussions on ways to leverage the platform in addressing data related to malaria in pregnancy. There are ongoing discussion with the malaria program in Cameroon for leverages the BornFyne PNMS to improve data collection at health facilities during antenatal care.
Conclusions
Women start ANC relatively late despite its high availability, it is usually not accessible due to cost, distance and level of quality as reported by women. Some pregnant women do not sleep under mosquito net because they do not have access to it and/or they do not have the appropriate usage. Part of the pregnant women doesn’t received IPTp, highlithing the need of reinforcing the surveillance and follow up; all what is made possible by the digital BornFyne PNMS that send alerts to health providers when there is data missing in patient’s files.
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