With Data, Nurses Guide Communities to Slash Malaria Cases

One of them is René Lumpunga, a nurse from Nsenda health area in the Mpokolo health zone. Every month, he meets with local providers to collect their data on cases they treated. Then he meets with other nurses from the health zone and neighboring health areas to share data and compare results against previous months. They discuss which interventions have been working in their communities, such as sensitization sessions about insecticide-treated bed nets and community clean-ups to clear out standing water.

These community meetings pay particularly close attention to malaria mortality rates, soliciting community input and assistance to find the source of upward or downward trends and to plot a path forward. As a result, community members are encouraged to hold health facilities accountable. In one meeting in Kasai-Oriental, women from a local community learned about negative malaria mortality trends and demanded increased anti-malarial drug availability for pregnant women.

Finally, Lumpunga runs an “open door” daytime meeting so people—particularly women—can come and go as throughout the day to learn about the presence and treatment of malaria in their communities. He presents the results against Nsenda’s target of a 20 percent annual reduction in cases and answers community members’ questions about malaria incidence.

In 2021, the program expanded the approach to the provinces of Haut-Katanga and Haut-Lomami and will continue to widen the strategy in the coming years. Today, all three provinces use the data tracking tools and continue to engage in community discussions to ensure the data influence interventions. Providers also work jointly with community action groups, who plan prompt activities in response to the malaria data. With Abt’s support to improve facilities’ capacity to collect and harness their data, we are empowering local actors to make sustainable and evolving changes to their health system as new needs arise.