PA-395 Effect of mass testing, treatment and tracking on malaria prevalence among children in the Pakro sub district of Ghana over a two-year period

BackgroundGlobal efforts to scale-up malaria control interventions are gaining steam. These include the use of LLINs, IRS, Intermittent Preventive Treatment and Test, Treat and Track. Despite these, the drive for malaria elimination is far from being realistic in endemic communities in Africa. This is partly because asymptomatic parasite carriage, not specifically targeted by most interventions fuel transmission. There is a need to use alternative strategies that target asymptomatic parasitaemia. We report the impact of malaria mass testing, treatment and tracking (MTTT) on prevalence of asymptomatic parasitaemia over a two-year period in Ghana.Methods5800 individuals in 7 communities in the Pakro sub-district of Ghana participated in this study. Community-based health volunteers moved from house-to-house testing participants using RDTs and treating positive cases with ACTs quarterly. ResultsIn the intervention arm, the prevalence of asymptomatic parasitaemia significantly decreased from 22.9% (95% CI: 19.8, 26.1) in March 2020 to 6.5% (95% CI 5.9, 7.0) in March 2022 among all the participants. Also, a significant reduction in parasitaemia was observed during the July season 2020 to 2021 (P