The Effectiveness of Malaria Prevention Methods for Migrant Population: A Systematic Review of Published Results

Abstract

Malaria remains a major public health problem in the world especially in the developing countries. Migrant populations are an especially vulnerable group for the malaria prevention. This systematic review has been performed to estimate the effectiveness of malaria prevention methods. Five past field trials comparing various prevention methods to placebo or untreated controls for migrant populations were included to assess the effectiveness of each method. The calculated pooled relative risk for those field trials using the insecticide-treated bed net prevention method was 0.34 (95% confidence interval (CI) between 0.29 and 0.41). The calculated pooled relative risk for studies using insecticide-treated cloths, bed-sheets, or top-sheets was 0.62 (95% CI 0.52 to 0.74). Taken together for all field trials, the pooled relative risk was 0.38 (95% CI 0.34 to 0.42). Thus, result suggests that the aforementioned malaria prevention methods decreased the risk of contracting malaria by approximately 62%.