Of the three principal and recommended case surveillance strategies deployed by the AMC over the past three years, the highest proportion of cases detected (n = 151; 95.6%) and also the highest yield of positive cases (16.1 positives per 100,000 persons tested) have been from Passive Case Detection. The number of cases detected by both RACD and PACD over the 3 years were small being four and three cases respectively. However, Reactive Case Surveillance gave a much higher yield of 11.2 positives per 100,000 smears, than PACD which gave a mere 0.3 positives per 100,000 smears examined. Much fewer smears were collected and examined by RACD (n = 35,842) than by PACD (n = 1,099,378) which accounts for this difference in yield. These findings have been consistent over the three year period examined here.
RACD and PACD each comprise of some very distinct sub-categories as explained in Table 1. Greater insights into the yields from different case surveillance strategies emerge from a sub-analysis of RACD and PACD, which was performed for only the most recent year on account of the data recording system not accommodating the classification of the number of smears examined into these sub-categores in previous years. Thus, in 2019 within RACD, the tracing and screening of travel-cohorts (travel contacts of index cases) was the highest yielding of all strategies (806.5 positives per 100,000 persons screened). Within the PACD strategy the screening of “travel-cohorts” of returnees to the country unconnected to an index case, and identified as being at high-risk also gave a very high yield (44.9 positives per 100,000 persons screened). Thus collectively three categories gave extremely high case yields: 1) Passive Case Detection;2) screening of travel-cohorts in relation to index case in RACD; and 3) screening of travel cohorts within PACD unrelated to an index case. They accounted for nearly half (49.6%) of blood smears screened in 2019. Importantly, all of the malaria cases reported during the entire three year period of this study were detected through these three case surveillance strategies.
The rest constituted just over half of the blood smears examined (50.4% of the total) in 2019. And these strategies gave a zero yield of cases over the three years. These were the Reactive screening of spatial cohorts, i.e. residents of houses located in the vicinity of an index case which constituted 3% of all blood smears examined and the Proactive screening of spatial cohorts – i.e. population groups, of either foreign or Sri Lankan nationality resident in Sri Lanka (with or without a history of travel overseas) who were considered to be at risk because they live in previously malarious areas and/or areas with a high degree of receptivity, which constituted 47.3% of blood smears examined in 2019.
The two broad case surveillance strategies for malaria, passive and active case surveillance, engage two very different arms of the health system. PCD entails operating within the existing curative sector of the health system, in both the private and public sectors, and requires regular and continuous information to be provided to clinicians on the need to test for malaria in febrile patients with a travel history. It also entails strengthening the diagnostic services for malaria throughout the health care system in both private and public sectors to ensure wide access to a high quality diagnosis. These are very challenging activities when the malaria disease burden is extremely low, and for a disease rarely encountered by clinicians as is the case in Sri Lanka at present [9–13].
Contrastingly, ACD, both RACD and PACD requires extensive community level operations, and human and other resources in order to investigate index cases and trace their contacts especially in the case of RACD. PACD needs community intelligence on where high-risk groups may reside, and entails actively searching for and screening them. These activities require a community workforce and constant vigilance on information from the field. In Sri Lanka it is public health inspectors and field staff of the Regional Malaria Offices supervised by the Regional Malaria Officers that perform these tasks. These strategies also require transport facilities, and entail close collaborations with other sectors beyond health – immigration, airport and aviation and port health, the military, police, tourism, as well as departments dealing with repatriation, refugees, and special categories of travellers such as pilgrims [5, 14–16].
Although both strategies ACD and PCD are beset with challenges in a post-elimination situation, PCD is an inherent component of the health information system, and this analysis confirms its critical role in surveillance. Firstly, because from an ethical standpoint PCD responds to individuals with illness. It is therefore indispensable. Secondly because it is a very effective case surveillance strategy − 95.6% of the malaria cases during the 3 years of study was detected through this strategy. The yield of 16.1 per 100,000 blood smears examined was also high, making PCD an effective strategy. The need to strengthen it as a major surveillance strategy is obvious, and the effort may need to be a continuous one, post-elimination [9–13].
A recent review of RACD strategies in endemic countries which examined only the screening of spatial cohorts within RACD found that none of the published studies had compared the effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of RACD in elimination settings vis-a- vis no RACD, meaning that effectiveness data was not available [17]. Several of the documented descriptions of RACD in houses neighbouring an index case reviewed [17] were in countries which were close to elimination and where transmission was occurring even at a low intensity and therefore, not surprisingly, many of them reported finding cases through this strategy [18–22]. The study reported here might, therefore, may be the first to examine the yield, of not only RACD but of other case surveillance strategies as well.
Effectiveness of case surveillance strategies, in terms of the yield of positives, cannot be the sole criterion for making policy decisions on their continued use to prevent the re-establishment of malaria. For example, the programme could ill afford to have missed the relatively small number of cases detected by RACD and PACD in the past three years. If these operations had not been performed, the seven cases may not have been detected because they had no symptoms, or their detection may have been long delayed resulting in onward transmission until, possibly an outbreak occurred. Besides, the usefulness and even effectiveness of these strategies could change with circumstances. For example, although the screening of spatial cohorts i.e. neighbouring houses of index cases did not lead to the detection of any cases over the seven years since elimination (data not shown for the years 2012–2016), it may be relevant in situations where an introduced or indigenous case of malaria has been reported in a highly receptive area, making a malaria outbreak imminent.
The data here shows that within RACD, reactive screening of travel cohorts who are contacts of an index case, and within PACD, the screening of travel cohorts arriving from endemic countries give extremely high yields, even though only a few (4.4% of all cases) were detected through these two strategies over the three years. The high yield in these strategies owes to the relatively focused screening of a small numbers of people who are at high risk. More importantly these findings call into question the effectiveness of two other categories of case surveillance operations which are continued unmodified since WHO certification, and being performed routinely, accounting for about half of all blood smears examined. These are the routine screening of spatial cohorts, i.e. of neighbourhood households of an index case within RACD, and within PACD the intermittent screening of populations groups residing even temporarily in previously endemic regions unrelated to an index case and regardless of whether they had recently travelled overseas.
The findings described here also imply that the routine and intermittent screening of population sub-groups, merely because the receptivity of the area is high, and without any other risk factor being present in the area, may be wasteful. This is all the more significant given that just over half of the smears examined were from these two categories, mainly from the latter. Over the past three years the screening of travel cohorts within both RACD and PACD gave high yields, whereas the screening of spatial cohorts in either category led to hardly any case detections. These findings call for identifying more discerning criteria with which to narrow the selection and sizes of risk populations for screening in post-elimination settings. Therefore, one could argue that case surveillance strategies need to be formulated not only on the basis of a case classification e.g., imported, indigenous, introduced case, but also taking into consideration the broader contexts – such as the receptivity of the area, the duration of time that lapsed between the onset of illness and treatment, and parasite species etc. which influence the probability of onward transmission.
This study highlights the importance of regular analysis and review of country data post-elimination to inform the programme on which case surveillance strategies to invest in. This analysis may also serve to provide evidence for refining existing policy guidelines on case surveillance in the POR phase of malaria. The optimal use of case surveillance strategies will help ensure that government allocated funds for malaria which, after elimination tend to be limited [23], are used more effectively.