The impact of delayed treatment of uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria on progression to severe malaria: A systematic review and a pooled multicentre individual-patient meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Delay in receiving treatment for uncomplicated malaria (UM) is often reported to increase the risk of developing severe malaria (SM), but access to treatment remains low in most high-burden areas. Understanding the contribution of treatment delay on progression to severe disease is critical to determine how quickly patients need to receive treatment and to quantify the impact of widely implemented treatment interventions, such as 'test-and-treat' policies administered by community health workers (CHWs). We conducted a pooled individual-participant meta-analysis to estimate the association between treatment delay and presenting with SM.

Methods and findings

A search using Ovid MEDLINE and Embase was initially conducted to identify studies on severe Plasmodium falci

SUBMITTER: Mousa A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7571702 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature