Comparing Treatments for Malaria White Paper

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Treatment of Malaria

Halliday and her team (2014) studied the effect of intermittent screening and treatment or IST on malaria among young students in a low-to-moderate transmission setting in Kenya. The main goal of the study was to improve the volunteer children's cognitive development and overall health. Specifically, it aimed at determining the benefit of alternative therapies against malaria and the impact of adjusting treatment to the intensity of the disease, which are not adequately explored ( Halliday et al.).

The intervention was conducted on a group of 5,233 school children in 101 government primary schools in Kenya from 2010 to 2012 (Halliday et al., 2014). They were selected at random from 5 classes and then followed up for two years. Once a year, public health workers screen the children with rapid diagnostic tests or RDTs whether they had symptoms or not. Those found positive for the tests were treated with six doses of artemether-lumefantrine or AL. The trial was not blinded (Halliday et al.).

Of the 88.83% screen school children at each round, 17% were found positive by RDT (Halliday et al., 2014). The primary outcomes were anemia and sustained attentions while the secondary outcomes were malaria parasitaemia and cognitive improvement. As applied in this particular location in Kenya, intermittent screening treatment was found ineffective in the improving the cognitive performance or overall health of the selected volunteer children.

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The researchers theorized that the lack of impact could have been the defined geographical differences in transmission, rapid re-infection after receiving AL treatment regimen, the inconsistent dependability of RDTs and the potential contribution of malaria to the development of anemia among the volunteers in this setting (Halliday et al.).

This study, thus, provided evidence of the lack of health or education benefits from internment screening treatments or IST with ALat least in this particular setting (Halliday et al., 2014). It also found that many of those screened did not require treatment. Those who needed treatment lived in places where malarial transmission was high. In these areas, re-infection was also fast and occurred between screening periods. On account of these conditions, no lasting gain was obtainable from treatment. But nonetheless, schools, which use RDTs to screen for malaria may develop appropriate methods to identify potential hotspots for community action. Schools may conduct surveys to determine the heterogeneities of malarial transmission in a larger area in a more frequent and cheaper way than community surveys. These results may be useful in identifying local transmission heterogeneities. They can be used in creating targeted-community-wide interventions like localized indoor residual….....

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"Comparing Treatments For Malaria" (2015, April 17) Retrieved May 21, 2024, from
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"Comparing Treatments For Malaria", 17 April 2015, Accessed.21 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/comparing-treatments-malaria-2150423