Landmark agreement signed to prevent malaria in pregnancy and reduce life-threatening complications in sub-Saharan Africa

Madrid, Spain – An ambitious effort has been launched to prevent malaria in pregnancy in communities in sub-Saharan Africa. This innovative initiative will complement existing antenatal care services and increase pregnant women’s opportunities to access care under a grant agreement signed today by Unitaid and Jhpiego, an international nonprofit health organization and affiliate of the Johns Hopkins University.

Unitaid is investing US $50 million to ensure that pregnant women in malaria-affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa have access to a preventive therapy for malaria known as “intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy” or IPTp. The five-year project, to be implemented by Jhpiego, will increase IPTp coverage and expand antenatal care attendance in four African countries — the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria.

The project — also known as “Transforming IPT for Optimal Pregnancy” (TIPTOP) — will increase IPTp coverage through community-level distribution of quality-assured sulfadoxine-pyramithimine (the medicine used for IPT). Jhpiego has partnered with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), which will lead the research and evaluation components of the project. The two organizations will also collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Medicines for Malaria Venture to achieve the desired results.

This community-based IPTp approach, which will augment and complement existing antenatal care services by reaching 400,000 pregnant women and their babies, will also produce the evidence needed to update WHO’s policy on IPTp.

In areas with high malaria transmission, pregnant women and young children are especially vulnerable to malaria infection and death. Although malaria is preventable and treatable, an estimated 429,000 people died from the disease in 2015, according to WHO. Moreover, malaria during pregnancy can lead to a number of negative consequences, including low birth-weight for babies and even still births. In some cases, malaria can be fatal for the mother. In 2015, IPTp coverage rates remained at just 31 percent in 20 African countries.

The Unitaid-funded TIPTOP project plans to engage community health workers to increase IPTp delivery and demand to ensure there are no missed opportunities for pregnant women to receive this life-saving medicine either in the community or through the antenatal services.

“By accelerating access to this critical, life-saving preventive therapy, we are hoping to avert further unnecessary deaths from malaria,” said Lelio Marmora, Unitaid’s Executive Director. “Unitaid continues to advance on all fronts by developing innovative tools to fight malaria and insecticide resistance.”

Dr. Leslie Mancuso, Jhpiego’s CEO and President, said the TIPTOP project offers an exciting opportunity to demonstrate an innovative approach to address pregnant women’s needs and stop malaria in pregnancy. “Preventing malaria in pregnancy and reducing malaria-related deaths is achievable — and this partnership will go a long way toward reaching those goals,” she said.

About Jhpiego

Jhpiego, an international nonprofit health organization affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University, has worked for 45 years to empower frontline health workers by designing and implementing effective, low-cost, hands-on solutions to strengthen the delivery of health care services for women and their families.

www.jhpiego.org

Contact Kristin Vibbert at 1-484-888-0277.

About ISGlobal

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the result of an innovative alliance between the “la Caixa” Foundation, academic institutions and government bodies, was set up to contribute to the work undertaken by the international community to address the challenges of health in a globalized world.

www.isglobal.org

About Unitaid

Read more on our About Us page.

Saving lives with new insecticides to fight malaria — a photo story. (en anglais seulement)

Saving lives with new insecticides to fight malaria — a photo story

Malaria affects millions of people worldwide, but Africa is the most severely affected. A child dies every 2 minutes of malaria and new tools are desperately needed to fight the growing threat of insecticide resistance. Unitaid is funding a project with the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) to make new, long-lasting insecticides for indoor spraying more affordable to African malaria programmes and their partners.

Partnership supports launch of malaria vaccine pilots in three African countries

Geneva – The world’s first malaria vaccine, RTS,S, has moved a step closer to a global rollout following WHO’s announcement that Ghana, Kenya and Malawi will begin administering the vaccine in 2018.

The three countries will host pilots to evaluate the feasibility of delivering the required four doses of RTS,S in real-life settings, the vaccine’s potential role in reducing childhood deaths and its safety in the context of routine use.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Unitaid are partnering to provide US $49.2 million for the first phase of the pilot programme.

Ministries of Health in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi will implement the pilots, in coordination with WHO.

“The world’s first malaria vaccine is a real achievement that has been 30 years in the making,” said Dr Seth Berkley, Gavi CEO. “Today’s announcement marks an important step towards potentially making it available on a global scale. Malaria places a terrible burden on many of the world’s poorest countries, claiming thousands of lives and holding back economies. These pilots are crucial to determining the impact this vaccine could have on reducing this toll.”

“This vaccine is yet another tool with potential against a disease that disproportionately threatens children under the age of five,” said Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “The pilots represent a significant step toward clarifying the role this vaccine can play in response to malaria.”

“We are very excited to see that the world’s first malaria vaccine is being test-piloted with children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi,” said Unitaid’s Executive Director Lelio Marmora. “It is vital that with our partners we pursue this opportunity to assess the vaccine’s feasibility in real-life conditions as a step towards making it widely available.”

The vaccine will be made available through routine immunization programmes to young children living in the selected areas. Immunization authorities in the three countries will specify the exact schedule, based on WHO recommendations.

The first phase of the pilots are expected to be completed by 2020, following which a second phase is expected to be completed by 2022. The results will be used to inform decisions on a wider-scale rollout.

RTS,S is the first and, to date, the only vaccine to show a protective effect against malaria among young children in Phase 3 clinical trials. The Phase 3 trial, conducted over 5 years from 2009 to 2014, enrolled approximately 15,000 young children and infants in seven sub-Saharan African countries.

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