Purpose
World Vision (WV) contributes to reduction of maternal and under 5 (U5) mortality through implementing Global Fund (GF) grants in Malawi and Mozambique. In 2017, WV calculated the impact of GF malaria programming in Malawi and Mozambique by estimating the number of U5 children and maternal lives saved and the U5 mortality rate (U5MR) using the Lives Saved Tool (LiST).
Methods
LiST [1] is a free mathematical modeling tool for estimating the impact of health interventions. Data was obtained from immunization, malaria and HIV/AIDS indicator surveys and WV GF Annual Performance Report for Mozambique and from the Health Management Information Systems for Malawi.
Results
A total of 5,113 U5 lives were saved over the period of 2016 -2017 in Malawi due to interventions focused on first-line antimalarial treatment for children U5. When running prospective analysis with coverage of 100% for the period of 2018-2020 the results show 9% decline in U5MR by the end of 2020 and 8,980 U5 lives saved. In Mozambique the number of U5 lives saved was 9,214 for the period of 2015-2017 and 5.2% decline in U5MR due to distribution of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) and pregnant women sleeping under LLIN. Prospective analysis for the period of 2018-2020 shows it is possible to achieve 14,801 U5 lives saved and decline of 7.5% in U5MR if coverage of 100% for two indicators are maintained.
Conclusion
Although only one intervention was scaled up for Malawi and two for Mozambique, it can be stated that coverage was high enough to produce these results. The potential impact of rapid scale up of LLIN distribution on averting deaths in each country is also suggested by these results. These results may have policy implications regarding funding allocation to effective interventions and scale-up in other similar, low resource contexts.
[1] http://livessavedtool.org/all-downloads-tools#LiSTSpectrum