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World Malaria Report 2019.
The emergence of COVID-19 could undermine elimination efforts. Like malaria, one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19 is fever.
- Guan WJ
- Ni ZY
- Hu Y
- et al.
Diagnosing fever in the Asia-Pacific region has always been a challenge due to the large number of feverish diseases prevalent in the region, including malaria, dengue, typhus, typhoid, and leptospirosis, among others, and health systems. ” insufficient capacity to cope with them.
- Shrestha P
- Roberts T
- Homsana A
- et al.
With COVID-19 added to the mix, differentiation between these diseases becomes even more difficult. In addition, due to physical distancing measures and personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements, COVID-19 is limiting access to medical care. To ensure that health emergencies like COVID-19 do not impede progress toward eliminating malaria, frontline health workers must be better equipped to deal with such threats.
Adapt malaria interventions in the COVID-19 response.
Therefore, the challenges for continuation must be overcome to empower providers with the means to care for malaria patients, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and in preparation for future disease outbreaks. To ensure that malaria efforts continue, health care toolkits could be expanded to include improved tools and training to safely identify malaria patients. Tailored healthcare packages including pragmatic advice on PPE options, training on the use of triage tests such as respiratory rate measurements, and digital tools to support data collection and contact tracking could help healthcare workers in its short-term task, as well as building the foundations for a more integrated management of fever in the future (table).
TableRecommendations for community health care and primary health care packages to differentiate febrile illnesses
COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019. PPE = personal protective equipment. ICCM = Integrated Community Case Management. IMCI = Integrated Management of Childhood Diseases.
- Pokharel s
- White LJ
- Waters R
- Celhay O
- Pellé KG
- Dittrich S
It could be an easy complement to current packages now, and to future integrated management packages, when supported by appropriate and quickly shared training programs to ensure correct use. This approach to address additional febrile illnesses and strengthen community referrals would be beneficial in supporting patient management and contributing to the monitoring and testing of emerging communicable diseases such as COVID-19. In the future, diagnostic tests for other febrile or respiratory diseases may be included to allow detection of other causes of fever, such as rapid tests that detect C-reactive protein, a marker of bacterial infection, or rapid diagnostic tests for response to prominent doxycycline. pathogens or group A streptococci.
- Althaus T
- Greer RC
- Swe MMM
- et al.
- Pokharel s
- White LJ
- Waters R
- Celhay O
- Pellé KG
- Dittrich S
Digital versions of these algorithms can support compliance and can be linked to surveillance systems.
- McLean ARD
- Wai HP
- Thu AM
- et al.
and improve preparation for future outbreaks.
We do not declare competing interests. Rachel Wright, funded by the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, provided medical writing assistance and editorial support, under the direction of the authors, in accordance with Good Publication Practice guidelines.
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Posted: April 24, 2020
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30210-2
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