35 tutors, 50 clinicians undergo malaria training

THIRTY-FIVE tutors in nursing schools and 50 clinicians underwent a weeklong training on improving malaria diagnosis and testing, an official says.
Central Public Health Laboratory director Dr Evelyn Lavu told The National that the purpose of the training was to provide updated information on malaria pathogenesis (the manner in which the disease develops), epidemiology (patterns, causes, and effects), clinical features, diagnosis and management to clinic lecturers and trainers.
“Malaria is a high-burden infection in PNG with 95 per cent of the population living in endemic areas,” Lavu said.
“Accurate diagnosis and therefore appropriate treatment are important components in the malaria control programme.”
She said the training emphasised on clinicians to use the rapid diagnostic test (RDT) because it was fast and easy to use in both urban and rural health facilities.
Lavu said microscopy was the standard diagnosis measure but there were some challenges, especially in rural areas, so  in 2012 RDT was introduced.
“The rollout of training in RDT use did not reach all health workers and knowledge of and trust in using RDTs for malaria diagnosis is not uniform in PNG,” she said.
“This training has been developed to build capacity.”
The training was done under the Australia-China-PNG pilot cooperation on Malaria Control Project, which will bring Australian, Chinese and PNG scientists and researchers together to tackle malaria in the country.