Monitoring antimalarial efficacy in routine clinical practice in Tanzania

Abstract

Examines the approach used to generate data on chloroquine treatment failure rates from health centres in Tanzania using the local staff to collect data within routine clinical services. This is so as to establish a systemised procedure for data collection that will reflect anti-malarial drug resistance in routine clinical practice. Two health centres in Manarumango village, Kisarawe district and one health centre at Ngerengere in Morogoro rural district were the study sites. Laboratory examinations were carried out. Initial treatment was with chloroquine tablets and in all cases of chloroquine treatment failure, Fansidar or SP was given. Only data from patients who did not respond to chloroquine treatment up to the third day was collected to establish the rate of early treatment failure. Early treatment failure was 51.6% and 47.7% for Manarumango and Ngerengere health centres, respectively and adequate clinical response was 37.4% and 51.2% for Manarumango and Ngerengere health centres, respectively. Results reveal that it is possible within the routine clinical