Building a community of malaria modelers, analysts, and partners

This hackathon will focus on building a complete health reporting system in DHIS2, starting with an empty instance and ending with a dashboard that a program can use to inform action. Participants will set up DHIS2 on their own laptops using Docker and then work through the full configuration workflow: building the organizational unit hierarchy manually and through CSV import, creating data elements and category combinations, designing data sets and data entry forms, entering and validating aggregate data, and constructing indicators that turn raw counts into comparable rates. These skills apply to any health program, whether immunization, maternal and child health, HIV, TB, or disease surveillance. Malaria routine data, including suspected cases, testing, confirmed cases and treatment, will serve as the worked example throughout, demonstrating how each piece of metadata connects to the next and how configuration choices shape what a program can ultimately see and use for decision-making. Participants will also explore case-based data entry through event programs; custom form design using HTML, CSS and JavaScript; analysis using the Data Visualizer and Maps apps; and the assembly of a two-column program dashboard. The training will also cover user management, data export, system customization, and extending DHIS2 through the App Hub. All topics will be taught through hands-on exercises that reinforce each step before participants move on to the next. This Hackathon is taught in English, but we invite instructors of other languages to lead sessions. Reach out to info@ammnet.org if you are interested in leading a session in French or Portuguese.

Next-generation malaria interventions are advancing faster than the systems expected to deliver them. Effective products alone are not sufficient: countries also need the institutional capacity to regulate, finance, procure, distribute and monitor new tools sustainably. The Africa Readiness Index is a multi-domain framework assessing national preparedness across governance, regulatory capacity, supply chain infrastructure, health workforce readiness, domestic financing, pharmacovigilance and political commitment. Applied across ten high-burden African countries, it reveals a structural inversion the countries carrying the greatest malaria burden score lowest on readiness, with domestic financing consistently the weakest domain. This presentation introduces the framework, discusses its country-level findings, and considers how readiness assessment can help governments, funders, product developers and implementation partners identify and address system bottlenecks before new interventions arrive. his presentation is in English and there will be real time interpretation into French. Participants can also activate the CAPTIONS feature on Zoom for translation into their language of choice.