MEDA net campaign ensures protection from deadly malaria over long-term for at-risk women and infants

Stephen O'Brien, UK Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for International Development (DFID), recently visited MEDA's new malaria net project in Tanzania. Funded by DFID, the project will ensure those most at risk of malaria - pregnant women and babies - will have continued access to bed nets. At centre is Faith Patrick, MEDA Tanzania country manager.

Pregnant women in Tanzania, and those with newborns, will be able to sleep more easily thanks to a MEDA project to ramp up the distribution of malaria nets as new babies are born and old nets wear out.

Malaria is a leading cause of illness and death in Tanzania and many other African nations; pregnant women and small children are at highest risk.

MEDA will distribute three million nets over the next three years as part of a voucher program aimed at pregnant women on their regular visits to area health clinics. The £14,078,475 (about $21.7 million) project is being carried out with funding from DFID – the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom – and USAID – United States Agency for International Development.

In recent years, MEDA has delivered 33 million nets as part of both its voucher program and the mass coverage “catch up” campaigns in Tanzania. This has resulted in a significant increase in net use and over 180,400 lives saved. The initiatives have gone a long way to meeting Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing infant mortality rates.

The challenge

As a result of the mass campaigns, net use by pregnant women and mothers with babies was estimated at 80% in 2009/10, but that number is expected to drop to 55% by 2014 as nets wear out.

Over the next three years, through a new “keep up” campaign, MEDA will be ensuring that those at highest risk of malaria have access to nets by:
•    Providing health clinics have adequate stocks of net vouchers for pregnant women;
•    Expanding the network of retail outlets to increase access to nets; and,
•    Ensuring that retailers have sufficient nets, and a variety of nets, to meet consumer demand.

MEDA is employing mobile telephone SMS technology to help deliver vouchers electronically to health clinics. A pregnant woman only needs the voucher number, not a phone, to redeem her voucher for a net at a retailer near her. Electronic distribution saves on printing vouchers and physically sending them over long distances to remote locations, but also reduces the risk of fraud.

Costs of malaria in Tanzania

•    16 million malaria episodes reported annually
•    Malaria contributes 42% of outpatient department visits for children under 5
•    60,000 malaria deaths each year
•    80% of deaths are among children under 5
•    Remaining 20% includes pregnant women, who are much more susceptible and vulnerable to malaria