MULTIPLY: Preventing malaria in early childhood
The MULTIPLY project aims to maximise the delivery and uptake of Intermittent Preventive Treatment in infants (IPTi), to achieve full potential and effectiveness of this intervention.
Through this implementation, capacity will be built and fundamental programmatic issues to achieving effectiveness will be assessed, including:
- IPTi operational feasibility and acceptability;
- impact on health services integration, i.e. on Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) immunisations and vitamin A administration coverage;
- the cost and cost-effectiveness of IPTi delivery including through the outreach EPI platform;
- the impact on malaria incidence, anaemia, overall mortality, SP resistance development and the safety of the intervention.
Principal Institution(s)
The integration of IPTi with EPI contacts, together with social and behaviour change communication campaigns to inform communities of the importance of EPI, and the malaria protection afforded by IPTi delivered at the EPI, could lead to an increased demand for EPI.
MULTIPLY is a large-scale implementation development cooperation project, which includes public and private European and African institutions. Research partners from Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Togo in selected country districts will conduct the implementation of IPTi at health facilities and EPI mobile-outreach clinics using a paediatric dispersible formulation of SP, alongside routine vaccinations and vitamin A supplementation. Children will receive up to a maximum of 6 doses of IPTi in the first two years of life.
