Elimination prospects of residual malaria in rural Brazilian Amazon: research strategy of Plasmodium vivax reservoirs

Objectives

This project has the general objective to implement and evaluate a strategy for detecting potential reservoirs of infection in areas of residual malaria transmission by monitoring transmission focuses around clinical episodes diagnosed in the city of Acre, the eastern end of the state of Acre.

The specific objectives are: 

1. Classify new episodes of malaria laboratory confirmed, over 12 months as indigenous cases, relapses, imported cases or cases introduced;
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of detecting new infections around each index case, combining conventional microscopy and molecular diagnosis by comparing the monitoring of potential transmission focus with the monitoring of households out of the potential for transmission focus but belonging to the same locality; and
3. Determine the epidemiological links between malaria infections diagnosed by genotyping of parasites obtained during monitoring of potential foci of transmission.