What proportion of fevers in African children are due to malaria, and how many receive appropriate treatment?
Suspected malaria cases in Africa are increasingly likely to receive a rapid diagnostic test before antimalarials are prescribed. While this is effective for detecting and treating malaria infections, it does not address potential coinfections with non-malarial febrile illnesses, which may be systematically left untreated. During this talk, I will address: i) methods for estimating the prevalence of fever amongst African children, and the underlying causes for these fevers, ii) the rate at which treatment is sought for fever, and iii) the appropriateness of treatments received and health providers’ adherence to national treatment guidelines. We estimate that these metrics have all varied spatially and temporally in African countries between 2006 and 2016; this refined understanding can help improve the interpretation of the burden of febrile illness across the continent.