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\n \n \n \nPosted 23/04/2019. Human population movement can lead to the persistence of malaria along the Thai\u2013Myanmar border. Lisa White, Wirichada Pan-ngum and colleagues show that malaria risk is related to the number of days doing outdoor activities in the dry season, especially trips to Myanmar, to forest areas and overnight trips. Understanding movement patterns is important when considering targeted public health interventions, especially during the elimination phase.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 05/04/2019. Until World War II the only Plasmodium vivax malaria generally recognised had either a long (8\u20139 months) incubation period or a similarly long interval between initial illness and the first relapse. Long-latency P. vivax \u2018strains\u2019 were the first in which relapse, drug resistance and liver stage development were described, yet in recent years they have been largely forgotten.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 29/03/19. This qualitative study documents how clinical interventions are influenced by their local context. Factors like health policies or physicians\u2019 fears of under-treating infectious diseases can influence adherence to the intervention and potentially hamper efforts to reduce antibiotic use in developing countries. The work was led by former CTMGH member Marco J Haenssgen, drawing on clinical trials in Southeast Asia by Yoel Lubell and Heiman Wertheim.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 12/03/2019. Large case-control studies have reported that glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency exists due to its opposing effects on falciparum malaria: protection against cerebral malaria but an increased propensity to develop severe malarial anaemia. A reanalysis of these claims by James Watson and colleagues shows they are likely explained by 'collider bias', as case definitions excluded patients with both anaemia and coma on presentation.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 05/03/2019. Seasonal malaria is common in the Sahel, resulting in malaria-related morbidity and mortality, particularly in young children. Seasonal chemoprevention with the antimalarial drug dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine is effective and safe. However, results presented here by Palang Chotsiri and colleagues show that malaria incidence could be reduced substantially by using an increased and extended dosage in young children.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 11/12/2018. Phaik Yeong Cheah and colleagues report a qualitative study on how best to seek broad consent to sharing individual level health research data beyond research collaborations. Their findings demonstrated that research participants prioritise information about the potential benefits and harms of data sharing. The researchers also found that explaining data sharing to research participants was challenging.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 10/04/2018. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to public health. A new report by Elizabeth Ashley and colleagues describes the role of supranational networks in AMR surveillance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); Liz Ashley and colleagues analysed networks that were in existence between January 2000 and August 2017. This study reveals the challenges of establishing sustainable and effective networks to tackle resistance to antimicrobial medicines.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 13/11/2018. Quinoline and related antimalarial drugs are vital tools in the fight against malaria. However, concerns about their possible effects on the heart rhythm may limit their use. Dr Ilsa Haeusler, Dr Xin Hui Chan, and colleagues found that these serious side effects are reassuringly rare in the treatment of malaria
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\n \n \n \nPosted 04/09/2018. DHA-piperaquine is an important antimalarial recommended by the WHO for the treatment of malaria, and an ideal candidate for mass use in malaria elimination. In a large meta-analysis of ~200,000 subjects, Dr Xin Hui Chan and colleagues find the risk of sudden unexplained death after DHA-piperaquine is extremely low and not higher than baseline, confirming the drug\u2019s safety for the treatment and prevention of malaria.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 03/07/2018. Chloroquine, the recommended treatment for vivax malaria, delays but does not prevent relapses. Primaquine is the only widely available drug that prevents relapses but it can induce haemolysis in patients with G6PD deficiency. Cindy Chu and colleagues showed that added to chloroquine, primaquine is very effective for relapse prevention, but should be used alongside quantitative G6PD testing.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 05/09/2017. Can faster progress be made in the fight against malaria by targeting interventions to where they will have the most impact? Health economists and mathematical modellers from the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit have developed an approach to use maps of disease risk together with models of the transmission of disease and the costs and effectiveness of malaria interventions to help local decision makers design more impactful malaria control and elimination programmes.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 13/06/2017. It has been maintained for decades that quinine is the safest drug for treatment of malaria in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the largest analysis of data from Thailand and Africa, artemisinins are reported to be at least as safe as quinine. This will simplify treatment protocols worldwide.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 03/02/2017. Led by Professor Arjen Dondorp, researchers have found that a dominant strain of drug resistant falciparum malaria, first detected in 2008 in Cambodia, has spread to other countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region of Southeast Asia. This causes treatment failure rates for the main falciparum malaria medicines, artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs)
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\n \n \n \nPosted 25/08/2017. In more than 50,000 pregnancies where 16% of women had malaria infection, the odds of small for gestational age and preterm birth following falciparum, and vivax malaria, were quantified. These newborn effects have life-long implications and efforts to effectively prevent malaria in pregnancy must be pursued.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 14/08/2017. Through history and attributes of migration of Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis patients before diagnosis and treatment, and spatial analysis of their travelling patterns, the study highlights links between human migration and dispersal of multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis across wide geographic areas. It confirms needs for interventions suited to migrants\u2019 life circumstances.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 26/09/2017. Professor Phaik Yeong Cheah and colleagues published a paper describing their experience and challenges engaging with communities involved in the Targeted Malaria Elimination initiative in Karen State, Myanmar. The report gives a detailed account of the activities conducted and challenges encountered which included difficulties explaining concepts like drug resistance and submicroscopic infection.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 16/01/2018. Ethics guidelines have evolved to protect vulnerable groups such as pregnant women from research. This has resulted in a lack of research in these populations making them even more vulnerable because of the lack of evidence-based medical care. In this paper, Professor Phaik Yeong Cheah and her collaborators discuss how regulatory frameworks can sometimes lead to a generalized exclusion of pregnant women from research.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 21/11/2017. Scrub typhus is a serious mite-transmitted and difficult-to-diagnose infectious disease increasingly recognised as a major treatable cause of febrile illnesses with a wider distribution beyond Asia. Despite many limitations on the amount and quality of available reports to date, scrub typhus remains a severely underappreciated tropical disease, deserving more attention.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 15/11/2017. Professor Phaik Yeong Cheah and colleagues published a paper on the evaluation of a community engagement project using drama in Western Cambodia. They demonstrated that the project was feasible in promoting awareness of malaria prevention and control. Audience members perceived drama as entertaining and as the preferred choice of engagement activity.
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\n \n \n \nPosted 13/02/2018. Two mass drug administrations against falciparum malaria were conducted in 2015\u201316, one as operational research in northern Cambodia, and the other as a clinical trial in western Cambodia. During an April 2017 workshop in Phnom Penh the field teams from M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res and the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit discussed lessons for future mass drug administrations.
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