Active clinical trials for "Malaria"

The routine treatment of children with antimalarials will be monitored. Children with a positive malaria film and/or a positive rapid diagnostic test (RDT) will have a capillary blood sample taken to verify the diagnosis and to monitor the pattern of resistance.

This is a study of how well caregivers of children with malaria adhere to the recommended regimen for lumefantrine-artemether (LA). Children were randomly assigned to either a group receiving directly observed treatment in hospital or to a group treated at home by the routine caregiver (typically, patient's mother). Clinical/parasitologic, hematologic, pharmacologic and qualitative parameters were monitored over a 28-day follow-up period and are used to evaluate drug adherence.

Worldwide, approximately 2 billion people live in areas at risk for malaria with morbidity surpassing 250 million cases, with approximately 800,000 deaths, per year. Of the four species of malaria parasites that cause human infection, P. falciparum is responsible for the majority of severe malaria cases followed by P. vivax. Early and accurate diagnosis is essential for prompt and correct treatment, which can reduce the death rate and interrupt transmission. Currently, conventional methods for the diagnosis of malaria include microscopic examination of thin and thick blood smears and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). Light microscopy in practice typically detects parasitemia as low as 100 parasites/µl and it can differentiate species. The advantage of microscopy includes the ability to estimate parasitemia, the possibility to identify parasite stages, including gametocytes, and its low cost. However, this method is labor intensive, difficult to standardize, and requires well-trained microscopists. The majority of RDTs are based on detection of P. falciparum histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP-2) antigen and do not detect all malaria species. RDTs that detect lactose dehydrogenase (LDH) and aldolase generally broadly react with all four species of malaria parasites and therefore cannot differentiate among the species although efforts are underway to improve their performance for species detection. In settings where multiple malaria species co-circulate, molecular methods may be more reliable than microscopy and RDTs in accurately diagnosing the species of malaria parasites with low parasitemias. However, conventional molecular methods, such as nested polymerase chain reaction (nested PCR) or real-time PCR, are technically challenging and resource intensive and are generally restricted to reference laboratories due to the need for well-equipped laboratories. Recently, new molecular methods that can be used in field settings have been developed and this opens up new opportunities for exploring molecular tools for malaria diagnosis in endemic countries. With the objective of facilitating use of molecular tools for malaria control programs, the malaria laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, USA developed a simple isothermal molecular method called Real-Time Fluorescence Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (RealAmp) for the diagnosis of malaria. Currently, RealAmp primers exist for detecting the Plasmodium genus and the detection of P. falciparum and P. vivax species. The RealAmp method has great potential as a molecular tool for the diagnosis of malaria in the field (and other infections of major public health impact, such as HIV and tuberculosis). It can provide an alternative to conventional PCR-based diagnostic methods for field use in clinical and operational programs. The objective of this proposal is to validate the sensitivity of RealAmp for detection of malaria parasites in blood spots from patients with clinical diagnosis of malaria in two endemic states of Brazil with co-circulation of P. falciparum and P. vivax. In this evaluation, RealAmp and microscopic examination will be compared to a real-time PCR method as a reference test.

The purpose of this study is to identify and screen potential subjects for preliminary eligibility to participate in a malaria related clinical trial conducted at the Seattle Malaria Clinical Trials Center (Seattle MCTC) or one of our partnering sites.

The aim of the study was to follow clearance of malaria infections and detection of new malaria episodes after initiation of antimalarial treatment in Tanzanian children. For this purpose the investigators used five diagnostic tools, 2 Rapid Diagnostic tests based on Histidine Rich Protein 2(HRP2) and Lactate dehydrogenase(LDH), 2 microscopical methods and one polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The investigators followed the 53 enrolled children during 42 days.

Background: Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite. People get malaria if they are bitten by an parasite-infected mosquito. A drug called artemether-lumefantrine (AL) can treat malaria. Although iAL has helped make the malaria problem less severe in the African country of Mali, researchers want to find out if malaria parasites are becoming resistant to this drug. Objective: To test for AL-resistant parasites in children with malaria in Mali. Eligibility: AL resistance monitoring study: children aged 2 17 years who live in Kenieroba, Mali, and have malaria. Blood collection substudy: healthy volunteers aged 18 65 years. Design: Volunteers for the substudy will have blood taken up to 6 times a year. Study participants will be screened with 1 finger-prick blood sample. Girls may have a pregnancy test. Baseline visit: Participants will have a physical exam. Their vital signs and temperature will be measured. They will answer questions about their symptoms. They will give a blood sample. Participants will get 6 doses of AL over 3 days. They will take it in tablet form with milk. Some participants will also stay at the clinic for 2 days. They will have a catheter placed in a vein. They will have blood taken frequently. Participants will have follow-up visits for about 1 month. They may have: Physical exam performed Vital signs and temperature measured Symptom questionnaire administered Finger-prick blood sample and/or a regular blood sample taken Pregnancy test given Antimalarial medications other than AL provided.

This study is to determine the prevalence and geographical distribution of antimalarial drug resistance-linked genetic mutations in clinical P. falciparum infections in Cambodia

Bloodstream infections are frequent in children admitted to the hospital for severe febrile illness in sub-Saharan Africa.Ongoing blood culture surveillance at Kisantu Hospital showed non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) as the first cause of bloodstream infections in children. Bloodstream infections have a high case fatality (15 - 20%). Outcome of bloodstream infections is dependent on timely diagnosis and treatment. However, observations at Kisantu Hospital showed that many children arrive late and die early after admission. By interviewing caregivers of severely ill children admitted to Kisantu Hospital, the investigators aim to study their health itinerary, i.e. the sequence of all actions of health care seeking and care provision between the onset of febrile illness and the admission at the hospital. The investigators aim to assess the health itinerary according to the "three delays" model. The three delays model studies delays and practices at the level of health care seeking, of transport and of start of antibiotic treatment.10 Visits to referring health centers will provide complementary information about diagnosis, treatment and referral practices. In hospital follow-up will allow to assess the outcome according to the duration of health itinerary. The results of routine laboratory tests upon hospital admission will allow to stratify the health itinerary according to fever etiology. The results of this study will allow to understand the duration of the health itinerary, its possible association with case-fatality, and factors explaining for delays at every level. This information is expected to orient local health policy makers towards interventions shortening the duration of the health itinerary and in that case improve and monitor the referral system. In addition, the study results are expected to orient towards further research to understand health seeking behavior (i.e. focus-group discussions and community-based studies).

In endemic areas, Plasmodium falciparum malaria exacts a huge public health toll, causing close to half a million deaths each year. In non-endemic industrialized areas, imported malaria may develop. In France, around 5000 imported cases occured annually, including 10-15% of severe malaria. The criteria for defining severe malaria in endemic areas are established by the World Health Organization (WHO), and have been adjusted for severe imported malaria. In France, in order to optimize management, severe imported malaria is separated into two groups: very severe malaria (VSM) and less severe malaria (LSM). Briefly VSM included coma and/or shock and/or respiratory failure and/or acidosis and/or hyperlactatemia and/or death during hospitalization. In France, severe imported malaria is treated with intravenous artesunate. Little is known about the management of imported VSM in the ICU with intravenous artesunate. In a French national multicentric retrospective frame, the main objective of the present study is to describe in detail: epidemiology, management, outcome and prognostic of very severe imported malaria treated with intravenous artesunate during the period 2011-2019. The second objective is to retrospectively compare two groups : VSM treated with intravenous artesunate in the ICU during 2011-2019 versus VSM treated with intravenous quinine in the ICU during 2000-2010.

Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is an aggressive monoclonal B-cell malignancy that is rare (sporadic) worldwide, but is 100-fold more common (endemic) in equatorial Africa, particularly among children. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and malaria are epidemiologically linked to endemic BL in epidemiologic studies, but questions remain about role of EBV variants and the evidence for association with malaria is weak. EBV is ubiquitous, yet only few children develop BL, possibly because only a few EBV variants are pathogenically relevant. The association of BL with malaria is based on ecologic and non-comparative clinical studies. Two case-control studies have reported significant association of high anti-malarial antibodies with BL (OR=5_ among children in Uganda and in Malawi, but selection bias (cases and controls came from dissimilar geographical areas) and reverse causality bias were limitations. Three studies were conducted in the 1960s and 70s to test association of carriage of malaria-resistance gene with BL, two of which reported a significant or marginal inverse association. These pioneering studies were small (240 cases all together) and looked at one polymorphism in one gene (sickle cell gene). Improvements in technologies to characterize genetic variation allow the EBV and malaria hypotheses to be examined with greater power by looking at genetic variation across multiple genes. Epidemiology of Burkitt lymphoma in East African children and minors (EMBLEM) is a case-control study of 1500 BL cases and 3000 age-, sex- and residence-frequency matched controls we are proposing to conduct in East Africa. The study will enroll cases at four hospitals in four regions in East Africa, where malaria transmission is holoendemic and year round. The controls will be enrolled from general population attendees at Health Center II (HC-II) units where the cases originated. The primary study objectives are: 1) to test the hypothesis that genetic resistance to malaria is associated with a lower risk of BL, and 2) to use genome-wide association methods to discover genetic variation that may be associated with decreased or increased risk of BL. Because genetic variation conveys no information on actual exposure to malaria or EBV, in secondary analyses, we will use empiric epidemiological questionnaire and laboratory methods: a) to measure exposure to malaria and its association with BL, and b) to measure EBV variants and their association with BL. To examine issues related to bias and to obtain data to correct for deviations, we will also enroll 2250 population controls from 5% of the villages to obtain population distribution of key exposures variables. This data will be used to reweight the distribution in HC-II controls back to the general population. ...