The overall goal for Division of National Malaria Program is to reduce the Malaria incidence and deaths by 75% by 2023. The Kenya Malaria Strategy (2019 – 2023) seeks to protect 100% of people living in malaria risk areas through access to appropriate malaria interventions, manage 100% of suspected malaria cases according to Kenya Malaria Treatment Guidelines and to strengthen malaria surveillance and use of information to improve decision making (KMS, 2019). This is dependent on reliable surveillance, monitoring and evaluation of systems put in place with generation of high-quality data that can be relied on.

An unpublished report from Kenya Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program (FELTP) identified data quality issues in malaria data reported by five highland epidemic prone zone counties. These counties include: Uasin Gishu, Bomet, Kisii, Trans Nzoia and Nandi counties.

Malaria data reported through the Kenya Health Information System (KHIS) also indicates data quality challenges still prevail at the county level. Major discrepancies were noted between the various reporting tools in the KHIS. KHIS routine data also shows declined reporting rates for the EPR monitoring data with reporting rates for MOH 505 below the recommended 90% set by the Division of National Malaria Program (DNMP).

It is for these reasons that the Kenya FELTP, in conjunction with the DNMP, conducted a routine programmatic data quality audit and an assessment of Epidemic Preparedness and Response (EPR) for malaria in the five highland epidemic prone zone counties. The activity was conducted in May 2022 in Uasin Gishu, Bomet, Kisii, Trans Nzoia and Nandi counties.

The objectives of the investigation were:

• To conduct malaria data quality audit in the 5 selected counties.
• To conduct malaria epidemic preparedness and response assessment

A total of 46 facilities across the 5 counties were visited by the 5 teams. At the end of the activity, several recommendations were shared with the sub-county and county health management teams.