West African Stakeholders Support Technology-driven Malaria Control – Survey

ILESANMI OLUKEMI MOTUNRAYO

A new report by the Corporate Alliance on Malaria in Africa (CAMA) says 95.3 per cent of stakeholders surveyed across West Africa support greater use of technology and data-driven approaches to malaria prevention.

The report identified Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered surveillance and drone-based vector control as promising tools for malaria control.

The survey, titled “From Awareness to Action: Assessing Malaria Prevention Practices Across Workplaces and Communities in Africa”, involved 300 respondents from 10 West African countries.

It said that 70 per cent of respondents strongly supported greater use of technology in malaria prevention, while 25.3 per cent supported it.

Only 4.7 per cent were neutral, with the report recording virtually no opposition to technology-driven malaria prevention.

Despite the high level of support, the survey found a significant awareness gap concerning existing malaria-control technologies.

It said 49.3 per cent of respondents were previously aware that technologies such as AI, digital surveillance and drones were already being used in malaria control, while 50.7 per cent were unaware.

The report described the situation as a “visibility gap”, arguing that the challenge was not resistance to technology but limited awareness of technologies already being deployed.

AI-powered surveillance was identified by 41 per cent of respondents as the innovation with the greatest potential to improve malaria control.

Drone-based vector control followed with 35.7 per cent, while digital reporting systems attracted 23.3 per cent.

The report urged stakeholders to focus on demonstrating how emerging technologies were being applied to malaria prevention rather than concentrating mainly on persuading stakeholders about their value.

It called for greater dissemination of case studies, plain-language explanations and field demonstrations of AI-enabled surveillance and drone technologies.

According to the report, such efforts could help bridge the awareness gap and encourage wider adoption of technology-driven malaria interventions.

It also found no statistically significant difference between Anglophone and Francophone respondents in prior technology awareness, innovation preference or overall support for technology-driven malaria prevention.

It, therefore recommended, a unified sub-regional approach to promoting technology in malaria control.

The report said improved healthcare access, community education and technology adoption should all remain central to malaria-control efforts over the next five years.

It, however, said that some findings in the technology section were based on a data-enhancement protocol and should be treated as strategic working assumptions pending validation through a fully authentic West African dataset.