Leveraging existing program data for routine efficiency measurement in Zambia.

As donor contributions for HIV/AIDS stagnate globally, national governments must seek ways to improve use of existing resources through interventions to drive efficiency at the facility level.  But program managers lack routine information on unit expenditures at points of care, and higher-level planners are unable to assess resource use in the health system.  Thus, managers cannot measure current levels of technical efficiency, and are unable to evaluate effectiveness of interventions to increase technical efficiency.

Exploring the use of routinely-available, retrospective data to study the association between malaria control scale-up and micro-economic outcomes in Zambia.

Background: Country-level evidence on the impact of malaria control on micro-economic outcomes is vital for mobilizing domestic and donor resources for malaria control. Using routinely available survey data could facilitate this investigation in a cost-efficient way.

Methods: The authors used Malaria Indicator Surveys (MIS) and Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) data from 2006 to 2010 for all 72 districts in Zambia to relate malaria control scale-up with household food spending (proxy for household well-being), educational attainment and agricultural production.

The cost of implementing a nationwide program to decrease the epilepsy treatment gap in a high gap country.

Healthcare systems in many low income countries have evolved to provide services for acute, infections and are poorly structured for the provision of chronic, non-communicable diseases which are increasingly common. Epilepsy is a common chronic neurologic condition and antiepileptic drugs are affordable, but the epilepsy treatment gap remains >90% in most African countries. The World Health Organization has recently released evidence-based guidelines for epilepsy care provision at the primary care level.

The current availability of antiepileptic drugs in Zambia: implications for the ILAE/WHO "out of the shadows" campaign.

Recent concerns regarding antiepileptic drug (AED) availability in Zambia led us to conduct a study in the Lusaka and Southern Provinces to quantify the availability and cost of AEDs and assess determinants. Among 111 pharmacies, almost one-half did not carry AEDs (N = 54; 49.1%).