Capacity Building Project for Malaria Diagnosis and Treatment at Health Centers in Watthana Nakhon District, Sa Kaeo Province, Thailand

Abstract

This study aimed to decrease morbidity rate and time lag of malaria cases at Vector Borne Disease Control Unit 7 Wattana-Nakorn district, Srakaew province; through strenghtening capacity of health centers in malaria case management. Evaluation of the study was done by comparing of the incident and time lag at the end of the study. Competency based training was conducted in May 2002. Twenty nine of health center staff and four from Vector Borne Disease Control unit was participated in the training program. They were trained to use Dipstick (OptiMalTM) in the diagnosis of malaria and uncomplicated malaria treatment according to the national treatment guideline was instructed. After training 450 rapid tests (Individual test OptiMALTM) and anti-malarial drug was supplied. After 16 months: at the end of project (September 2003); Six vivax malaria cases were detected. The incident of malaria case was decreased from 4.67 in 2002 to 1.17 in 2003 while time lag was 2.2 days. The result of this study showed the use of dipstick at health center can decrease the suffering from the disease and prevent the spread of parasite in certain area.