The quality of malaria care in 25 low-income and middle-income countries

What is it about?

What is already known? 
•	While an extensive array of evidence about access to malaria care insecticide-treated bed nets, diagnostics, and treatments, as well as quality of malaria diagnostic tests and drugs are available, we know much less about the quality of malaria care provision and how quality of malaria care compares across LMICs.

What are the new findings? 

•	Quality of malaria care remains poor in many LMICs despite increasing access to malaria care tests and treatment drugs. 
•	Quality of care varies across the treatment cascade with febrile children often not receiving blood tests, resulting to improper treatment of malaria; thus, treatments are often prescribed regardless of malaria test results. 
•	Poor quality of malaria care also varies widely by regions with capital cities not necessarily providing better quality of malaria care than others.

What do the new findings imply? 
•	Our findings suggest that the quality of malaria for children under-five in many LMICs is quite low and that quality of care varies by malaria treatment cascade and regions. 
•	There is both undertreatment and overtreatment, regardless of malaria test results, requiring the need to strengthen future quality improvement strategies to ensure prompt and correct malaria testing and treatment across countries.

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