Last Updated: 18/06/2024
End malaria on islands in Vanuatu: the rollout of innovative anti-Plasmodium vivax strategies
Objectives
The aim of the project is to achieve sustainable malaria elimination; including strategies for P. vivax elimination in the entire archipelago, based on the achievement on Aneityum Island over the last 25 years.
Specifically the objectives are:
- to establish a robust malaria surveillance system to detect asymptomatic and sub-microscopic infections by PCR and identify remaining hotspots,
- to examine the containment strategy of short-term mass drug administration in concert with long-term vector control to eliminate infections in detected hotspots,
- to support the wider use of primaquine against P. vivax hypnozoites by investigating human CYP2D6 polymorphisms and G6PD deficiency related to primaquine metabolism and safety, respectively,
- to create a local economic mechanism such as malaria free award to encourage changes in human behaviors towards self-protection against malaria infections,
- to characterize the changes in genetic diversity of the last parasites and human anti-parasite immunity after malaria elimination.
Principal Institution
Principal Investigators / Focal Persons
Rationale and Abstract
In the Asia-Pacific region, malaria elimination faces the challenges presented by the high proportion of Plasmodium vivax infections. The existence of latent and persistent P. vivax hypnozoites in the liver makes this species less amenable to elimination efforts than P. falciparum. Vanuatu is an archipelago of 68 inhabited islands in the southwest Pacific.
External reference
Date
Jan 2018 — Dec 2020
Total Project Funding
$474,560
Funding Details
Deep Dives
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