Liberia

How We Do It

Health Facility & Community Activities

Case Management Trainings in Best Practices:

Nearly 4,000 national health workers (MoH&SW, NGO and FBOs) have been technically trained and coached in malaria case management including County Health Teams (CHT), health agency supervisors, dispensers (including medicine stores in Monrovia) and screeners. Topics covered during the trainings included curative and preventative malaria control, including the importance of educating patients on early treatment seeking behaviour and Intermittent Preventative Treatment in Pregnancy (IPTp).

Prevention and Malaria Awareness Activities:

Over 800 community members/community health workers have been trained in Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), LLIN or Insecticide Treated Plastic Sheeting (ITPS) distribution. Over 600,000 people have received malaria protection though either use of IRS, LLINs or ITPS.

Health Promotion Activities:

Through the malaria in communities programme (MCP) The MENTOR Initiative has worked with local partners to develop community based malaria groups who work together to produce dramas, songs and posters on key malaria messages and implement community activities surrounding malaria control awareness. The dramas have been performed by cultural troops in the community, and recorded as radio and television/video programmes. Songs have played on local and national radio stations and posters used in target areas: health facilities, schools, public meeting areas.

Technical Support

National Strategy & Policy Change:

The MENTOR Initiative has supported the NMCP with policy changes and development of subsequent guidelines and national strategies.

MENTOR Technical support:

Since April 2003 The MENTOR Initiative has provided full time technical field support for all malaria partners in country to improve the design and quality of malaria interventions. As well as providing direct technical and operational support to the NMCP for surveys and studies, such as the Liberia Malaria Indicator Survey (LMIS).

NGO material support:

The MENTOR Initiative has been able to supply humanitarian agencies and the NMCP with essential stocks of malaria case management and prevention tools (following technical training), thereby enabling the rapid scale up and coverage of standardised best practice in Liberia.

Operational Research

A number of malaria operational research projects have been spearheaded by the MENTOR team.  Those projects completed include:

• ARGOS malaria surveillance project in six sentinel sites
• Testing of Insecticide Treated Plastic Sheeting (ITPS) effectiveness ; and LLIN durability;
• Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine resistance
• The use of rectal artesunate as a pre-referral drug for severe malaria cases

Research projects currently underway in the programme are investigating a number of questions surrounding both case management and prevention:

• In Vivo studies of AS+SP and A / L ACT combination therapies
• ACT adherence
• LLIN Durability
• Effectiveness of home based management of malaria programmes