Abstract:

Malaria remains endemic in South Sudan, accounting for 20% of deaths and 30 % of hospital admissions (Global Fund, 2015). The 2014 to 2021 South Sudan national malaria strategic plan aims to bring down the morbidity and mortality related to malaria by 80%, but stock-out of drugs is a major challenge (National malaria control program [NMCP], 2017).

South Sudan received over fifty five million (55,585,832 USD) United states dollars from Global fund in 2015 for fighting malaria in addition to similar amounts from Department of International development (DFID) but this has not changed the ant-malaria  stock out status(DFID, 2015). In the last quarter of 2014, 854 Community based distributors (CBDs) from two sub-recipients had stock out of Artemisinin based combination therapy (ACTs)  (Global Fund, 2015).

This retrospective study re-analyzed the data used for training 240 community based drug distributors (CBDs) in April 2015 on the use of malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT). Of those who passed the post test, 131 were given kits of RDT to practice the skills they had acquired and give ACTs only to the children 2-59 months who test positive for malaria.

The number of children assessed with fever were 1047, (534 males and 513 females); 1012 were done RDT and only 364(36%) tested positive for plasmodium falciparum malaria.  The iCCM programme in South Sudan treats all fever cases with ACTs. This one month RDT use therefore saved 64% of the ACTs that would have been irrationally used.

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