About the project
As efforts to control malaria are stalling, and the disease is particularly severe in children under the age of two, it is imperative for countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with areas of moderate-to-high transmission, to implement Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention (PMC) previously known as Intermittent Preventive Treatment in infants (IPTi) delivered through the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI ), which is the only feasible, sustainable and cost-effective strategy to reach this high-risk group. PMC is a full therapeutic course of antimalarial medicine (with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, SP) delivered to infants in the context of routine immunisation services during the first two years of life. MULTIPLY is the pilot implementation of PMC in selected districts in Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Togo to maximise the delivery and uptake of PMC, to achieve the full potential of this intervention. Working with the ministries of health in Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Togo, MULTIPLY will give up to 6 doses of PMC in the first two years of life. PMC will be given at health facilities and EPI mobile outreach clinics using a paediatric dispersible formulation of SP, alongside routine vaccinations and vitamin A supplementation.
Progress
MULTIPLY began in May 2021 with a virtual Kick Off meeting of 40 participants from Togo, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain. Subsequently the consortium has developed the study protocol and submitted it to institutional and national ethics committees. Pre-MULTIPLY PMC implementation / baseline impact and evaluation studies intervention have been conducted in Sierra Leone and Togo and will start in Q2 2022 in Mozambique. MULTIPLY PMC implementation started in Sierra Leone in February 2022, and will start in Togo in May 2022 and in Mozambique in Q2 2022.
Where we are
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