Impact of Malaria Control on Late and Early Infant Mortality in Senegal

• Date: 01 March 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/saje.12134
• Author: Aloysius Mom Njong,Rayner Tabetando
• Published date: 01 March 2017

IMPACT OF MALARIA CONTROL ON LATE AND EARLY

INFANT MORTALITY IN SENEGAL

RAYNER TABETANDO*

†

AND ALOYSIUS MOM NJONG

†

Abstract

One of the greatest achievements of the twenty-first century has been the dramatic decline in

malaria prevalence notably in endemic developing countries. In this study, we estimate the impact

of recent scale up in malaria control in Senegal on neonatal, postnatal and infant mortality. We

exploit natural preintervention variation in malaria prevalence to estimate the impact of recent

malaria control policy in Senegal. In a difference in differences design, we find a negative and sig-

nificant effect on neonatal and infant mortality in malaria endemic regions while the impact on

postnatal mortality is inconclusive. We rule out competing explanations such as contemporaneous

health campaigns, general improvement in health care delivery and pre-existing regional time

trends. We identify a 26.9% and 16.3% reduction in neonatal and infant mortality, respectively,

in malaria endemic regions during 2005–2014. We argue that increase in donor funding for

malaria control as well as greater involvement of local communities and civil society organization

has proven to be effective. However, the impact of malaria control on mortality may vary sub-

stantially depending on early or late infant mortality.

JEL Classification: I18, I12, J1, J18, D12

Keywords: Malaria, mortality, Senegal

1. INTRODUCTION

Unarguably one of the greatest achievements of the last decade has been the marked

reduction in malaria prevalence notably in endemic developing countries. Since the year

2000, malaria prevalence has dropped by 47% globally and 54% in Africa (WHO,

2014). However, the same report reveals that 278 million out of the 840 million persons

at risk in Africa still live in households without a single insecticide treated net (hereafter

ITN). Out of the 580,000 malaria deaths registered in 2013, 78% occurred in children

aged under five with over 90% occurring in Africa.

Beyond mortality, childhood malaria burden is known to have long lasting adverse

socio-economic effects on individuals and economies (Sachs and Malaney, 2002). In a

* Corresponding author: PhD Candidate, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, 7

Chome-22-1 Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo 106-0032. Tel: 181 80 94 31 1986, Fax: 181-(0)3-

6439-6010. E-mail: doc14163@grips.ac.jp

†

University of Bamenda, Cameroon.

I would like to acknowledge technical assistance from Prof. Tomoya Matsumoto of Grips,

Japan and Prof. Vikram Pathania of Sussex University.

Funding: This study did not receive any funding except the personal resources of the author.

Conflict of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards: approval and informed consent: The manuscript cites only published

sources. No approval by an Institutional Review Board was necessary, and informed consents

were not required.

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C2016 Economic Society of South Africa. doi: 10.1111/saje.12134

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South African Journal of Economics Vol. 85:1 March 2017

South African Journal

of Economics