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Malaria remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and is responsible for over 0.5 million annual deaths globally. During the first two decades of this century, scale-up of a range of tools was associated with significant reductions in malaria mortality in the primary risk group, young African children.
Global efforts led by The Kids Research Institute Australia’s Child Health Analytics program will see nations impacted by high rates of malaria empowered to develop their own controls and solutions.
Malaria imposes a significant global health burden and remains a major cause of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. In many countries, malaria transmission varies seasonally. The use of seasonally-deployed interventions is expanding, and the effectiveness of these control measures hinges on quantitative and geographically-specific characterisations of malaria seasonality.
The clinical development of novel vaccines, injectable therapeutics, and oral chemoprevention drugs has the potential to deliver significant advancements in the prevention of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. These innovations could support regions in accelerating malaria control, transforming existing intervention packages by supplementing interventions with imperfect effectiveness or offering an entirely new tool.
In recent decades, field and semi-field studies of malaria transmission have gathered geographic-specific information about mosquito ecology, behaviour and their sensitivity to interventions. Mathematical models of malaria transmission can incorporate such data to infer the likely impact of vector control interventions and hence guide malaria control strategies in various geographies.
Malaria is a deadly disease caused by Plasmodium spp. Several blood phenotypes have been associated with malarial resistance, which suggests a genetic component to immune protection.
The human landing catch (HLC) method, in which human volunteers collect mosquitoes that land on them before they can bite, is used to quantify human exposure to mosquito vectors of disease. Comparing HLCs in the presence and absence of interventions such as repellents is often used to measure protective efficacy (PE).
Melissa Penny PhD, PD, BSc (Hons) Professor Fiona Stanley Chair in Child Health Research melissa.penny@thekids.org.au Professor Fiona Stanley Chair
In high-transmission areas, school-aged children have higher malaria prevalence and contribute significantly to the transmission reservoir. Malaria infections can be asymptomatic or present with symptoms which may contribute to anaemia, severe illness and fatal malaria. This analysis provides trends of malaria prevalence and associated risk factors among school-aged children in mainland Tanzania.
Children recovering from severe malarial anaemia (SMA) remain at high risk of readmission and death after discharge from hospital. However, a recent trial found that post-discharge malaria chemoprevention (PDMC) with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine reduces this risk. We developed a mathematical model describing the daily incidence of uncomplicated and severe malaria requiring readmission among 0-5-year old children after hospitalised SMA.