Assessment of a Targeted Approach to Preventing Malaria in the Oil and Gas Industry
Authors: Denney Dennis 
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 98457, "Assessment of a Targeted Approach to Preventing Malaria in the Oil and Gas Industry: Responses to a Web-Based Questionnaire," by A. Barbey, SPE, Schlumberger; A.H.E. Roukens, Leiden U. Medical Center;J. Berg, Shell Health Services; and S. Cannegieter and L. Visser, Leiden U. Medical Center, prepared for the 2006 SPE International Conference on Health, Safety, and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2–4 April.

Following the death from malaria of four of its expatriate employees while they were in nonmalarious countries, an oilfield service company developed a targeted, multicomponent malaria-prevention program. The program comprises two levels of malaria training, malaria arrival and departure quizzes, a malaria hot line, and a curative malaria kit (CMK). The cornerstone of the program is the CMK, which contains a diagnostic test that employees can use to diagnose malaria in minutes and standby (emergency) curative medication.

Introduction

Every year, malaria caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum infects 300 to 500 million people and kills between one and two million, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South America, and in southeast Asia. Among the expatriate population working or living in these malarious areas of the world, malaria is a major occupational illness, responsible for numerous lost days and several deaths within the oil and gas industry every year. Falciparum malaria can kill non-immune individuals within a few days if not treated immediately.

Because the symptoms of malaria are not unique—fever, shivering, joint pain, and headache—and they do not occur until 7 to 60 days after infection, malaria is easily misdiagnosed or improperly treated. Most of the expatriate deaths occur not in the malarious country where the disease was transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito, but in nonmalarious countries where the infected expatriates have traveled for work or days off.

Four employees died of malaria between 2000 and 2002. All deaths took place outside of the malarious locations where the disease was contracted and in countries where the fatal form of malaria is not endemic. Following these deaths, a task force was created within the company with the aim of attaining and maintaining the goal of zero malaria deaths. The result was development of a malaria-prevention program based on the company's comprehensive quality, health, safety, and environment management system. The program pro vides processes and tools to fulfill the requirements of each of the system's eight elements. Components of the program are two levels of malaria training, malaria arrival and departure quizzes, a set of auditable malaria-prevention-program guidelines, and two innovative tools not previously used in oilfield malaria prevention: a malaria hot line and a CMK.

The malaria-prevention program was distributed by the oilfield service company to its international employees and their dependents and to its contractors working in high-malaria-risk areas. Since the prevention program began in early 2003, the service company has reported no malaria deaths within its employee/contractor population.