Active clinical trials for "Malaria, Falciparum"

It has long been recognized that the positive effects of vaccination on childhood mortality cannot be solely attributed to a decline in the disease targeted by the vaccine. These so-called non-specific effects of vaccination have so far mostly been linked to mortality. However, it has been suggested that non-specific effects may also effect morbidity and nutritional status. This study aims to further explore the correlation between vaccination, susceptibility to infectious diseases (particularly malaria and bacterial infections), nutritional status and immunity. With this prospective cross sectional study among healthy individuals in rural west-Africa we aim to address several research questions at the same time. This study will assess the influence of (time-point of) vaccination on morbidity, mortality and immune status among healthy individuals in a rural sub-Saharan African setting. Secondly, to explore the prevalence of subclinical malaria, iron deficiency anemia, sickle cell anemia and thallasemia among a healthy rural sub-Saharan African population. And finally to assess normal hemocytometry values among a healthy rural sub-Saharan African population.

Malaria during pregnancy remains an important public health issue in endemic countries. Most cases of malaria in pregnant women are asymptomatic, and can contribute to adverse outcomes, such as maternal and neonatal anaemia as well as low birth weight. Infections that do not cause symptoms (sub-clinical infections) - particularly in low transmission settings -remain difficult to diagnose during pregnancy but can contribute to adverse outcomes e.g. growth restriction, premature birth, miscarriage and stillbirth. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has supported the development of an HRP2-based high sensitivity rapid diagnostic tests (HS-RDT) that has analytical sensitivity ten times better than current RDTs and a sensitivity near 80% when compared to the 'gold standard' of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). In this regard, the new HS-RDT may be a promising diagnostic and screening test for subclinical malaria during pregnancy. The overall aim is to compare the performance of novel high sensitivity rapid detection tests with conventional rapid diagnostic tests for Plasmodium falciparum malaria infection in pregnant women in Papua New Guinea

A prototype rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to simultaneously screen for gambiense human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) and diagnose P. falciparum malaria (the "HAT/malaria combo") has recently been developed. The performance of this prototype has been evaluated in a retrospective study that showed that its diagnostic performance for HAT and malaria was equivalent to the performance of the SD BIOLINE HAT 2.0 and the SD BIOLINE Malaria Ag P.f tests, respectively. The purpose of this study is to prospectively evaluate the performance of the test in settings where P. falciparum malaria is endemic, and which are either endemic or non-endemic for HAT. This will enable the assessment of the suitability of the HAT/malaria combo RDT as a diagnostic test for malaria, and a screening test for HAT in pre-elimination and post-elimination contexts, respectively.