Democratic Republic of Congo
School children in the
One way to reduce the risk of malaria infection in children is to educate their mothers, according to a study published in Pathogens and Global Health.
The study suggested that educating mothers can be more effective in preventing childhood malaria than the malaria vaccine candidate RTS,S (Mosquirix).
Researchers said this finding can be explained by the fact that educated mothers know of ways to prevent malaria infection, such as using bed nets and taking their children for treatment if they develop a fever.
For this study, the researchers performed malaria testing in 647 children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who were between the ages of 2 months and 5 years.
The team also had the children’s parent or guardian fill out a survey related to demographics, socioeconomic status, maternal education, bed net use, and recent illness involving fever.
Results showed that mothers with a higher education level had children with a lower risk of malaria infection.
“This was not a small effect,” said study author Michael Hawkes, MD, PhD, of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
“Maternal education had an enormous effect—equivalent to or greater than the leading biomedical vaccine against malaria.”
Overall, 19% of the children studied (123/647) tested positive for malaria.
The prevalence of malaria was 30% in children of mothers with no education, 17% in children of mothers with primary education, and 15% in children of mothers with education beyond primary school (P=0.001).
In a multivariate analysis adjusted for the effect of a child’s age and the study site, maternal education was still a significant predictor of malaria antigenemia.
“It doesn’t take a lot of education to teach a mom how to take simple precautions to prevent malaria in her child,” said study author Cary Ma, a medical student at the University of Alberta.
“All it takes is knowing the importance of using a bed net and knowing the importance of seeking care when your child has a fever. These are fairly straightforward, simple messages in the context of health and hygiene that can easily be conveyed, usually at an elementary or primary school level.”
“The World Health Organization is rolling out a new vaccine [RTS,S] in countries across Africa that has an efficacy of about 30%,” Dr Hawkes added.
“But children whose mothers are educated beyond the primary level have a 53% reduction in their malaria rates. So educating the mom has as profound an effect on childhood malaria as hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a vaccine.”
The researchers said this work builds upon previous studies that have shown the importance of maternal education in reducing child mortality and disease in other countries around the world.
The team noted that maternal education isn’t a magic bullet by itself, but they do believe it is part of the solution. They hope the lessons learned via this study can help lead policymakers to strengthen efforts to educate girls and women in the DRC and other malaria hotspots around the world.
