Benin

Impact Malaria is a global project of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) to reduce mortality and morbidity caused by malaria. Implemented by a consortium of organizations led by PSI, the project is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. In close collaboration with the National Malaria Control Program, other sections of the Ministry of Health and various implementing partners, Impact Malaria is designed to improve malaria service delivery via the following objectives: 1) improve the quality of and access to malaria case management and prevention of malaria in pregnancy; 2) improve the quality of and access to other malaria drug-based approaches and provide support to pilot/scale up newer malaria drug-based approaches; and 3) provide global technical leadership, support operational research and advance program learning. In Benin, the project focuses primarily on improving services for malaria in pregnancy, in particular during antenatal care (ANC). In collaboration with PMI, the project is conducting a study of Group ANC, a service delivery model in which women with pregnancies of similar gestational age are brought together for ANC, combining information sharing, education and peer support. In Benin, Jhpiego is implementing a cluster randomized control trial to assess: 1) the impact of group antenatal care on uptake of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy, measured at the community level, and 2) the feasibility and acceptability of pregnant women as a sentinel surveillance population for malaria prevalence.