Systematic review of microeconomic analysis of pregnancy-associated malaria.

Introduction: Pregnancy-associated malaria (PAM) is a health problem with serious clinical, epidemiological and economic effects.

Purpose: To analyze the microeconomic evaluations of PAM reported in the world scientific literature.

Methods: Systematic review with 15 different search strategies in PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scielo, Google Scholar and Malaria in Pregnancy (MiP) Library. A search, selection and extraction protocol was applied, which guaranteed completeness and reproducibility in accordance with preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis guidelines. The methodological quality was evaluated using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) guide. The analysis were based on frequencies, costs and average and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios in 2018 US dollars adjusted for purchasing power parity.

Results: Twenty-two evaluations published between 1990 and 2018 were analyzed, of which 82% addressed cost-effectiveness in Africa. Twelve interventions were studied; of these, intermittent preventive treatment in pregnant women with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) was the most frequent strategy. The main outcomes were low birth weight, anaemia and DALYs avoided. The best average cost-effectiveness ratio was reported in IPTp-SP with a cost of US$ 2 per DALY avoided, followed by the administration of IPTp-SP in pregnant women with HIV (US$ 14.2).

Conclusions: The studies focus on Africa with a high heterogeneity in the interventions, outcomes, resources and populations studied. All the interventions were highly cost-effective, which demonstrates the importance of including prevention, care and control resources for PAM as a priority in health sector budgets. This is especially true considering the importance of its intervention for social progress and overcoming poverty in endemic areas.