Promoting Malaria Prevention and Treatment (ProMPT)

The Challenge

Work with Ghana’s National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) to strengthen malaria prevention and control and expand successful malaria interventions nationwide.

Overview and Objectives

ProMPT’s key strategies included:

• Strengthening health systems at the national, regional, and district level; 
• Improving provider competence and quality of care; 
• Increasing civil society engagement through community leaders, volunteers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and various types of communication; 
• Ensuring country ownership and leadership; and 
• Fostering coordination among the NMCP, partners, and donors supporting the NMCP.

ProMPT’s objectives were:

• Preventing malaria through the distribution of long lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLINs);
• Preventing/treating malaria in pregnancy, including through intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp);
• Managing clinical cases of malaria, including diagnosis and treatment with appropriate medications;
• Supporting the malaria component of home-based care (HBC, the term used in Ghana for community case management of childhood illness) by community-based agents to increase access to malaria treatment;
• Mobilizing civil society;
• Building the capacity of the NMCP; and
• Strengthening monitoring and evaluation systems.

Achievements

In collaboration with partners, ProMPT helped Ghana move closer to achieving the national goal of universal coverage of LLINs (one net for every two sleeping places) through an innovative door-to-door hang-up campaign that resulted in the distribution of more than 12.5 million LLINs. The project also engaged district and regional health teams and civil society in support of hang-up campaigns through advocacy, volunteer training and outreach, mobile van announcements, and traditional and mass media. ProMPT also:

• Tested and put in place strategies to ensure the ongoing distribution of LLINs through primary schools, antenatal care, and child welfare clinics.
• Trained more than 11,000 health workers on MIP and case management of malaria, likely contributing to an increase in the percentage of women who received two or more doses of malaria prevention medication during antenatal care visits; the percentage rose from 44% in 2008 to 65% in 2011, according to Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data.
• Enhanced facilities’ capacity for improving malaria services through the introduction of quality improvement tools, techniques, and methods. The project trained 625 district-level supervisors to provide on-site coaching and to support facility-specific action plans to address shortcomings. Over 15,000 health worker supervisory visits were conducted during the project’s period of implementation.
• Trained over 2900 community-based agents to recognize and treat malaria in their communities. The project delivered refresher training, HBC guidelines, and checklists to 1557 agents and 308 community health officers.
• Supported a multi-channel behavior change communication initiative that combined mass media, print, interpersonal communication, advocacy, and community drama. Over 11,500 radio spots on IPTp and LLIN use aired in five languages on 21 local radio stations, and over 4000 community, traditional, and religious leaders were oriented on malaria prevention.
• Developed the capacity of 33 Ghanaian NGOs to expand and support implementation of the malaria component of HBC and to carry out community mobilization for malaria prevention and treatment in close collaboration with the Ghana Health Service.
• Collaborated with the Policy, Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Division and the Centre for Health Information Management of the Ghana Health Service to ensure that Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group recommendations were incorporated into revised consulting room registers. The project also disseminated new registers to approximately 1,900 facilities in four regions, and supported the training of facility-based records staff in reporting malaria data.
• Supported facility-level coaching and supportive supervision to sustain improved malaria data practices, leading to the identification and the correction of an error in the calculation of IPTp coverage rates for data generated from the routine system. The project strengthened the internal capacities and NMCP monitoring and evaluation systems by posting a dedicated, senior-level monitoring and evaluation advisor, who provided leadership and technical direction to the program.