Treatment Coverage Estimation for Mass Drug Administration for Malaria with Dihydroartemisinin-Piperaquine in Southern Province, Zambia

Mass drug administration (MDA) is currently being considered as an intervention in low-transmission areas to complement existing malaria control and elimination efforts. The effectiveness of any MDA strategy is dependent on achieving high epidemiologic coverage and participant adherence rates. A community-randomized controlled trial was conducted from November 2014 to March 2016 to evaluate the impact of four rounds of MDA or focal MDA (fMDA)-where treatment was given to all eligible household members if anyone in the household had a positive malaria rapid diagnostic test-on malaria outcomes in Southern Province, Zambia (population approximately 300,000). This study examined epidemiologic coverage and program reach using capture-recapture and satellite enumeration methods to estimate the degree to which the trial reached targeted individuals. Overall, it was found that the percentage of households visited by campaign teams ranged from 62.9% (95% CI: 60.0-65.8) to a high of 77.4% (95% CI: 73.8-81.0) across four rounds of treatment. When the maximum number of visited households across all campaign rounds was used as the numerator, program reach for at least one visit would have been 86.4% (95% CI: 80.8-92.0) in MDA and 83.5% (95% CI: 78.0-89.1) in fMDA trial arms. As per the protocol, the trial provided dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine treatment to an average of 58.8% and 13.3% of the estimated population based on capture-recapture in MDA and fMDA, respectively, across the four rounds.