Modeling pediatric antibiotic use in an area of declining malaria prevalence

In malaria-endemic areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, overlap of clinical symptoms between malarial and non-malarial febrile illnesses can lead to empiric use of antibiotics among children. Our study aimed to illustrate the potential impact of decreasing malaria prevalence from malaria control efforts on antibiotic use. We constructed a probabilistic decision tree model representing antibiotic prescription in febrile children < 5 years. This model was used to predict change in absolute antibiotic use compared to baseline under levels of decreasing malaria prevalence. Model parameters were based on data from a hospital study in Ghana and validated via literature review. The baseline prevalence of malaria diagnoses was 52% among all hospitalized children. For our main results, we reported outcomes for a scenario representing a 50% decrease in malaria prevalence. Compared to baseline, absolute antibiotic prescription decreased from a baseline of 639 doses (95% CI 574-694) to 575 (95% CI 502-638). This reflected a 10% (95% CI 7%-13%) decrease in absolute antibiotic use. Our findings demonstrate that effective malaria control can reduce pediatric antibiotic use. However, until substantial progress is made in developing accurate diagnostics for non-malarial febrile illnesses, further reductions in antibiotic use will remain a challenge.