Despite policies that recommend parasitological testing before treatment for malaria, presumptive treatment remains widespread in Nigeria. Poorer individuals seeking care at PPMVs were more likely to receive inappropriate malaria treatment when compared to those who go to pharmacies. Increasing accessibility to reliable diagnosis should be explored to reduce malaria over-treatment.

To reduce the burden of disease from malaria, innovative approaches are needed to engender behavior change. One unobservable, but fundamental trait—preferences for risk—may influence individuals’ willingness to adopt new health technologies. We explore the association of risk preferences with malaria care-seeking behavior and the acceptability of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to inform RDT scale-up plans. Read the publication here.

The World Health Organization now recommends parasitological confirmation for malaria case management. However, where they have been deployed, adherence to RDT results has been poor, especially when the test result is negative. Participants were given a free RDT and the appropriate treatment advice based on their RDT result. Short Message Service (SMS) text messages reiterating the treatment advice were sent to a randomly selected half of the participants one day after being tested. SMS text messages substantially increased adherence to RDT results for patients seeking care for malaria from privately owned drug retailers in Nigeria and may be a simple and cost-effective means for boosting adherence to RDT results if and when RDTs are introduced as a commercial retail product.