Table 2 Using local evidence to estimate the magnitude of the problem or issue that an option aims to address

A number of countries have amended their malaria policies to replace chloroquine with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine as the first-line drug for malaria treatment, due to the growing levels of parasite resistance to chloroquine. In Tanzania, the impetus to amend treatment policies was based in part on evidence of a cure rate of approximately 40% for chloroquine, compared to 85-90% for sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine. This local evidence of the magnitude of the problem was drawn from sentinel sites across the country and linked to the growing burden of malaria morbidity and mortality observed in the country [35].

In some Latin American countries, there is concern regarding the extent to which the pneumococcal vaccine includes the serotypes that are common in the region. In order to estimate the size of this potential problem, information from local sentinel sites has been used to evaluate the match between the serotypes included in the vaccine and those prevalent in the region. In Brazil, for example, it was estimated that 67.5% of the cases of invasive disease in children under 5 years of age were produced by serotypes included in the seven valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [36].