Mozambique Randomized Control Trial
At the 7th Conference of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria in April members of the NgenIRS project, along with colleagues from around the world, met during a windy week in Dakar, Senegal to discuss the most recent malaria research, control, and elimination findings. Some of the key results presented by members of the NgenIRS project were included in a symposium on the cluster randomized trial taking place in Mozambique to determine the public health impact and cost-effectiveness of indoor residual spraying (IRS) with Actellic®300 CS.
PATH has been partnering with the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça (CISM), and the US PMI AIRS project since 2016 to conduct the trial in Mopeia District, Zambezia Province. The study team presented preliminary results describing the epidemiologic and entomologic impact of the 2016 IRS campaign. The trial, which is taking place in an area where parasite prevalence is significantly above 50% in children under five years of age, is broken into two study arms: one arm where households used LLINs, the standard malaria vector control tool in Mopeia (LLINs only), and one arm where households received IRS with Actellic® in addition to LLINs (IRS + LLINs).
Preliminary results to date have shown that in the first six months after the 2016 IRS campaign, RDT-confirmed malaria case incidence at district health facilities was 20% lower in children from villages with IRS + LLINs than from villages with LLINs only. After adjusting for health care utilization rates (around 56% in Zambezia), the analysis shows that an estimated 4,000 cases of childhood (under 5-year old) malaria were averted in Mopeia district during the 12 months after IRS. Entomological surveillance also revealed that the density of An. Funestus mosquitoes collected by CDC light traps during that same time period was 50% lower in IRS versus non-IRS clusters. Further analyses on complete passive case detection, active case detection, and cross-sectional survey data will be forthcoming, along with a comprehensive costing analysis that will shed light on the health system and societal costs of malaria and the cost-effectiveness of 3GIRS interventions in Mozambique.
Working Together with Partners to Expand the Evidence Base 26th June 2018The Mali story
In the last two years, NgenIRS has been working in close collaboration with a number of stakeholders in Mali to study the impact of IRS. The team’s first trip was conducted in September 2016 to introduce the NgenIRS evidence team, discuss current vector control/malaria landscape, review data sources and availability, prioritize research questions, and discuss study designs. The key partners in Mali include the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), the US President’s Malaria Initiative (funds IRS implementation in Mali), Africa Indoor Residual Spray Project (implements IRS in Mali), and the MEASURE Evaluation project (supporting NMCP on health information systems management and monitoring and evaluation activities). From the outset, all stakeholders were enthusiastic about the collaboration and expressed interest in conducting the IRS impact evaluations. Ideas, approaches, and data sets—including implementation and routine malaria surveillance data— were shared and the analysis process began. Two additional trips took place in 2018 to present preliminary analysis, review data gaps, and discuss future plans. During these visits, the NgenIRS team received feedback from NMCP, PMI, and MEASURE Evaluation and the analysis was refined and additional research questions posed.
Engaging country-level partners and providing frequent status updates on the analytic process has proven successful in building sustained and productive partnerships in Mali. As a result of this successful collaboration, the evidence base demonstrating that IRS is a cost-effective malaria control intervention has grown: a manuscript recently co-authored by study partners was published in early 2018 and its results have been discussed at length by multiple stakeholders during several presentations at ASTMH 2017, ASTMH West Africa 2018, and at MIM 2018.
As further NgenIRS analyses of more recent spray campaigns get underway, it’s clear that enthusiasm of in-country partners remains strong. MEASURE Evaluation, NMCP, and PMI have promptly validated and shared the latest malaria surveillance data and provided feedback on the data challenges and caveats to consider in the analysis as well as providing inputs for integrating the latest entomological surveillance data.
Analysis on New IRS Product SumiShield® 50WG in Ghana 30th November 2018NgenIRS partners with Ghana’s AGAMal programme to conduct analysis on new IRS product SumiShield® 50WG.
In September 2018, members of the PATH NgenIRS team visited the Upper West Region in Ghana to conduct a site visit in areas where the AGAMal malaria control programme is piloting the use of SumiShield® 50WG, a third-generation indoor residual spraying (3GIRS) product, in 3 districts. Sumishield, prequalified by the WHO in October of 2017, is effective against pyrethroid-resistant mosquitoes and now, along with Actellic®300 CS, provides vector control programmes the ability to annually and pre-emptively rotate between different 3GIRS products to prevent the emergence of resistance. With the introduction of SumiShield into Ghana, the NgenIRS evidence team now has an opportunity to analyze through routine data the public health impact of introducing a second 3GIRS product into an existing spray program. For the purpose of this impact evaluation, PATH is partnering with AGAMal to enhance routine epidemiological surveillance in the study sites through an assessment and selection of sentinel sites for accurate, timely, and complete monthly reporting of routine data in the DHIMS2 database.
Available to view/download – Evidence Snapshot: 3rd generation IRS (3GIRS) in northern savannah, Ghana
The NgenIRS project, funded by Unitaid(link is external), assists country and implementation partners to procure 3rd generation IRS insecticides at lower prices. This results in our partners protecting more people.
The Global Fund(link is external) supported AngloGold Ashanti Malaria Control Programme(link is external) (AGAMal) is a NgenIRS implementation partner who works closely with the Ghana National Malaria Control Programme(link is external) (NMCP) and PMI VectorLink(link is external) to protect at-risk populations in Ghana. This year, in addition to covering communities living in risk areas, all prisons in Ghana will be sprayed by AGAMal with a 3rd generation insecticide, SumiShield® 50WG(link is external). The 10 day campaign will result in the spraying of an estimated 13,707 structures.
The partnership between AngloGold Ashanti and the Government of Ghana is a good example of the success of a public private partnership to improve health and prosperity in Ghana.
Click on the link to read more.. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/anglogold-malaria-control-programme-starts-spraying-prisons.html
NgenIRS at VCWG 2019 20th April 2019The RBM Vector Control Working Group meeting was an ideal opportunity for NgenIRS to engage with country partners and other stakeholders.
The RBM Vector Control Working Group meeting was an ideal opportunity for NgenIRS to engage with country partners and other stakeholders. We took the opportunity to discuss the project’s catalytic market impact and new evidence showing the public health impact and cost-effectiveness of 3GIRS.
Two talks were presented during the meeting, one during the plenary session by Christen Fornadel (IVCC Technical Coordinator) on market access interventions – link to the presentation can be found to the right of this page, and another by Molly Robertson (NgenIRS Evidence Lead, PATH) during the IRS IRM workstream elaborating on the emerging evidence base, see link below.
You can find all the IRS and IRM workstream presentation links below:
Mark Hoppe & Dereje Dengela Introduction(link is external)
Molly Robertson – NgenIRS Project Update: Building an Evidence Base for 3GIRS(link is external)
Brad Lucas – Insecticide Rotation PMI VL Campaigns(link is external)
Megan Litrell – Increasing the use of data in IRS decision making(link is external)
Andy South & Ian Hastings – Windows of Selectio