Study strengths
malaria, fever
MALARIA
The strengths of this study include the fact that, it was the first of its kind to investigate the protective effectiveness of SMC using SPAQ delivered for seasonal malaria chemoprevention in an area with documented resistance to SP in Uganda. The choice of appropriate intervention and control districts where subjects were drawn, with a relatively stable population led to a negligible loss to follow up. The study design ensured equal distribution of key variables such as age, gender, wealth status, housing structures, availability of LLINs, geographical location and malaria prevalence among both groups and therefore these variables had no effect as confounder. The number of children selected to be followed in both arms was appropriate and feasible. The all the children were closely monitored by VHTs who would conduct weekly home visits and a research team based at HF which would visit them monthly. Also, the caregivers were encouraged to urgently bring the child to health facility when they suspect that the child is sick and were provided with transport allowances to seek this care. There was verification of the diagnosis of malaria among the study subjects through the VHT registers and registers at various health facilities’ points of care where malaria testing and diagnosis was documented. Where the malaria RDT results seemed invalid, microscopy was applied. This eliminated possibilities of false diagnosis of a fever as malaria without confirmed laboratory results.