Sistema de informação para prevenção e controlo de malaria

Abstract

Malaria represents one of the biggest public health problems in tropical countries including Mozambique, with serious socio-economic implications. Information systems play an important role in malaria prevention and control. Mozambique is part of a group of African countries that do not have sufficiently developed information systems capable of meeting the information needs for prevention and epidemiological control. In Mozambique, malaria is notified by the “Epidemiological Surveillance System” (EVS). This system does not produce enough information for malaria prevention and control. Without enough information it is difficult to make relevant decisions. The objective of this work is to design an Information System capable of providing relevant and sufficient information for analysis and decision-making in order to reduce morbidity and mortality from malaria. This system, once implemented, would process meteorological data, population statistics, etc. in addition to epidemiological data. Based on the information produced by it, it would be possible to make decisions with greater impact on health management and, consequently, reduce morbidity and mortality. For this purpose, the functioning of the EVS was analyzed: Processing of input data and output data, the decisions made based on this data and its impact. It was found that the information processed at all hierarchical levels is only epidemiological and is not sufficient for analysis and decision-making that contribute to reducing morbidity and mortality from malaria. This is how the “Malaria Prevention and Control System” was designed as an approach to solving the EVS problem