Achieving high coverage of larval-stage mosquito surveillance: challenges for a community-based mosquito control programme in urban Dar es Salaam,... (Publications)
BACKGROUND: Preventing malaria by controlling mosquitoes in their larval stages requires regular sensitive monitoring of vector populations and intervention coverage. The study assessed the effectiveness [...] ess of operational, community-based larval habitat surveillance systems within the Urban Malaria Control Programme (UMCP) in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. METHODS: Cross-sectional surveys were carried [...] particularly low for late-stage Anopheles (2.7%, 3/111), the most direct...
Next generation chemiluminescent probes for antimalarial drug discovery (Publications)
Malaria is caused by parasites of the Plasmodium genus and remains one of the most pressing human health problems. The spread of parasites resistant to or partially resistant to single or multiple drugs [...] frontline antimalarial artemisinin and its derivatives, poses a serious threat to current and future malaria control efforts. In vitro drug assays are important for identifying new antimalarial compounds and [...] detection limit of less than 100 parasites of the presented biosensor system...
Analysis of diagnostic findings from the European mobile laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea, March 2014 through March 2015 (Publications)
2015. METHODS: The unit diagnosed EVD and malaria, using the RealStar Filovirus Screen reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kit and a malaria rapid diagnostic test, respectively. RESULTS:
Analysis of diagnostic findings from the European mobile laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea, March 2014 through March 2015 (Publications)
2015. METHODS: The unit diagnosed EVD and malaria, using the RealStar Filovirus Screen reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kit and a malaria rapid diagnostic test, respectively. RESULTS:
Enhancing the routine health information system in rural southern Tanzania: successes, challenges and lessons learned (Publications)
supervision visits. Clinical data included malaria blood slides and haemoglobin colour scale results. Quality of captured data was assessed using double data entry. Malaria blood slide results from health centre [...] 2006-March 2007), 7056 attendances were recorded in 9880 infants aged 2-11 months, 50% with clinical malaria. Monthly supervision visits highlighted incomplete recording of information between OPD and laboratory
Indifferent to disease: a qualitative investigation of the reasons why some Papua New Guineans who own mosquito nets choose not to use them (Publications)
regarding malaria transmission pathways or the utility of mosquito nets did not appear to underlie this indifference. Rather, the indifference appeared to be rooted in a lack of fear of malaria infection [...] render individual mosquito net use as easy and as convenient as possible and to promote complementary malaria control strategies where appropriate
Preclinical evaluation of the antifolate QN254, 5-chloro- N'6'-(2,5-dimethoxy-benzyl)-quinazoline-2,4,6-triamine, as an antimalarial drug... (Publications)
inhibitors-such as pyrimethamine (PM)-has now spread to almost all regions where malaria is endemic, rendering antifolate-based malaria treatments highly ineffective. We have previously shown that the di-amino [...] highly PM-resistant Plasmodium falciparum V1S strain, suggesting that QN254 could be used to treat malaria in regions with a high prevalence of antifolate resistance. Here, we further demonstrate that QN254
Decreased availability of antimalarials in the private sector following the policy change from chloroquine to sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine in the... (Publications)
BACKGROUND: Malaria control strategies emphasize the need for prompt and effective treatment of malaria episodes. To increase treatment efficacy, Tanzania changed its first-line treatment from chloroquine [...] villages with a total population of 13,506 (18%) had neither a health facility, nor a shop as source of malaria treatment. CONCLUSIONS: While the change to SP resulted in a higher treatment efficacy, it also led
Rapid microarray-based method for monitoring of all currently known single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with parasite resistance to antimalaria... (Publications)
cal studies of malaria drug resistance. We have designed a multiwell microarray that is used in conjunction with PCR-amplified target genes implicated in the drug resistance of malaria with subsequent [...] by RFLP of mixed infections. The system is sufficiently sensitive to assay parasites in clinical malaria cases and in most asymptomatic cases, and it allows high throughput with minimal hands-on time. The
Comparison of analytical methods for the evaluation of antibody responses against epitopes of polymorphic protein antigens (Publications)
Surface exposed protein antigens of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum frequently harbor multiple dimorphic amino acid positions. These are associated with parasite immune evasion and represent [...] the humoral immune response against a semiconserved sequence (YX(44)LFX(47)KEKMX(52)L) of the key malaria blood stage vaccine candidate merozoite surface protein-1 (MSP-1). Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) raised [...] MSP-1(43-53) variant sequences. When used for the evaluation of humoral...
