Development and On-Field Deployment of a Mobile-Based Application ‘MoSQuIT’ for Malaria Surveillance in International Border Districts of Northeast India—Challenges and Opportunities

Saurav Jyoti Patgiri, Gunenja Gobinda Gohain, Santanu Kumar Goswami, Dibya Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Sudhanshu Hari Das Debnath, Lakshmi Panat, Ganesh Karajkhede, Pradyumna K. Mohapatra, Devojit Kumar Sarma, Ipsita Pal Bhowmick, Kongkona Gogoi, Sujit Biswas, Jayanta Debnath, Sukanta Acharjee, Susmita Senapati, Rahul Neog, Prabal Nath, Keisham Meitei, Subrata Baidya, Dinesh Debbarma, Ajit Sarma, Rahim A. Ahmed, Hemkanta Boro, Rubal Chandra Das, Jagadish Mahanta, Satya Ranjan Debbarma and Harpreet Kaur
Additional contact information
Saurav Jyoti Patgiri: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Gunenja Gobinda Gohain: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Santanu Kumar Goswami: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Dibya Ranjan Bhattacharyya: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Sudhanshu Hari Das Debnath: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune 411007, India
Lakshmi Panat: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune 411007, India
Ganesh Karajkhede: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune 411007, India
Pradyumna K. Mohapatra: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Devojit Kumar Sarma: ICMR-National Institute for Research in Environmental Health, Bhopal 462030, India
Ipsita Pal Bhowmick: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Kongkona Gogoi: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Sujit Biswas: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Jayanta Debnath: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Sukanta Acharjee: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Susmita Senapati: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Rahul Neog: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Prabal Nath: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Keisham Meitei: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Subrata Baidya: Department of Community Medicine, Agartala Government Medical College, Agartala 799006, India
Dinesh Debbarma: National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, Dhalai 799289, India
Ajit Sarma: National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, Dhalai 799289, India
Rahim A. Ahmed: National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, Udalguri 784509, India
Hemkanta Boro: Department of Health & Family Welfare, Tamulpur, Baksa 781367, India
Rubal Chandra Das: Changlang District Hospital, Changlang 792120, India
Jagadish Mahanta: ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, North East Region, Dibrugarh 786010, India
Satya Ranjan Debbarma: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Agartala 799006, India
Harpreet Kaur: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi 110029, India

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: The conventional paper-based system for malaria surveillance is time-consuming, difficult to track and resource-intensive. Few digital platforms are in use but wide-scale deployment and acceptability remain to be seen. To address this issue, we created a malaria surveillance mobile app that offers real-time data to stakeholders and establishes a centralised data repository. The MoSQuIT app was designed to collect data from the field and was integrated with a web-based platform for data integration and analysis. The MoSQuIT app was deployed on mobile phones of accredited social health activists (ASHA) working in international border villages in the northeast (NE) Indian states of Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh for 20 months in a phased manner. This paper shares the challenges and opportunities associated with the use of MoSQuIT for malaria surveillance. MoSQuIT employs the same data entry formats as the NVBDCP’s malaria surveillance programme. Using this app, a total of 8221 fever cases were recorded, which included 1192 (14.5%) cases of P. falciparum malaria, 280 (3.4%) cases of P. vivax malaria and 52 (0.6%) mixed infection cases. Depending on network availability, GPS coordinates of the fever cases were acquired by the app. The present study demonstrated that mobile-phone-based malaria surveillance facilitates the quick transmission of data from the field to decision makers. Geospatial tagging of cases helped with easy visualisation of the case distribution for the identification of malaria-prone areas and potential outbreaks, especially in hilly and remote regions of Northeast India. However, to achieve the full operational potential of the system, operational challenges have to be overcome.

Keywords: malaria; MoSQuIT; surveillance; NVBDCP; Plasmodium falciparum; Plasmodium vivax; Northeast India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2561/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2561/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:5:p:2561-:d:756300

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().