Underreporting of Epidemic Rebound and Resurgent Malaria in Nine African Countries

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Date

2022

Authors

Osman, Idil

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Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

This project focuses on the underreporting of epidemic rebound and resurgent malaria in nine African countries—The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe—over the span of a century. There is a history of undercounting and underreporting of malaria resurgence and rebound, the return of the disease in a region after successful control, on the African continent. This thesis attempts to account for these gaps and patterns by providing an overview and analysis of malaria prevalence from 1920-2020 through the documentation of unreported cases of malaria resurgence. Historical epidemiological data of malaria prevalence and control measures were collected, organized, and analyzed to compile a longer frame, essentially creating a new panel dataset, to illustrate longer trends in time and identify instances of rebound. Initial findings show multiple unreported cases of malaria rebound in the nine African countries. The results of this research add to the field of malaria research and have implications on the nature of data collection methodology and its presentation on a global scale. It provides a framework for how accounting for how accounting for social, political, and cultural contexts, WHO and other public health organizations can more accurately and fully determine and present cases of resurgent malaria and epidemiological data.

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Keywords

malaria rebound and resurgence, malaria control, global health, underreporting of data, data collection and presentation norms

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