Malaria Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPTi) pharmacovigilance in Malawi: A case of Lilongwe district.

Background: Intermittent Preventive Treatment with Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine in infants (SP-IPTi) is a malaria control strategy which, together with the delivery of routine childhood immunizations, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) was implemented in Lilongwe district of Malawi from September 2008 to November in 2009. A study was performed by Lilongwe District Health Office (DHO) in collaboration with funding from UNICEF to evaluate the safety of SP-IPTi and identify potential new Adverse Events (AEs) spontaneously identified, reported, monitored and evaluated.

Methods: A cohort event monitoring study was conducted on 15, 000 infants in 4 Health Facilities (HFs) after administration of SP-IPTi to infants during routine immunizations.

Lessons Learned from Introducing a Village Health Registry in Malawi.

The Village Health Registry (VHR) was a community health data collection tool introduced in 1998. It was first introduced in Mwanza district of Malawi with the objectives of collecting community-based data, analysing and taking action in a local setting. The tool was collecting and updating data such as demography, immunization status for children under one year, growth monitoring for children under five, monitoring of all pregnant women, incidence of malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea cases, water and sanitation and deaths, by visiting households in every village every month.