Mpumalanga, September 2015 - The World Health Organization with South Africa’s National Department of Health and partners including the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases have begun training Malaria Case Investigators to strengthen malaria surveillance efforts for the 2015/2016 malaria season.  The training is being held to ensure that case investigators are able to classify all malaria cases.

Some parts of South Africa are malaria endemic and last year a total of 13 986 cases occurred: 5552 were of local transmission, 7396 were imported and 1038 were unclassified. 

With South Africa committed to the Malaria Elimination Programme, the country wants to identify all cases, treat them, interrupt and stop further transmission at the source.  The Malaria Case Investigators will form part of the rapid verification, assessment, referral and health education teams.   To carry out their tasks as expected, the Cases Investigators are required to undergo the requisite training which introduces them to:

       What malaria is;
       Malaria diagnosis theory and practicals;
       Malaria treatment;
       Vector control planning;
       Malaria surveillance;
       Health education theory and practicals; and
       Malaria 24 hour reporting.

Trainees completed a pre-test and post-test for every module.

The three malarial provinces (Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Kwazulu-Natal) and Gauteng province, which experiences high number of imported cases, are targeted for the training.  To date, the training team has trained 12 Environmental Health Officers and 18 Malaria Case Investigators in Mpumalanga. The other provinces will be covered by the end October 2015.