Fighting Malaria Together Newsletter - December 2010

Diagnostics workshop highlights 2011 research agenda

A malaria diagnostics meeting held this fall discussed ongoing research in the field and outlined priorities for the European Commission’s call for proposals, anticipated in 2011. By Roger Peck, PATH.

Twenty-five experts on malaria, public health, and diagnostic tests from Europe, Africa, and the Americas gathered in Brussels in early September to identify the research priorities for malaria diagnostics and assess how small- and medium-sized enterprises can support research, building on the broad research agenda outlined in the Roll Back Malaria Global Malaria Action Plan in the draft Malaria Eradication Research Agenda recommendations. The workshop—Optimizing Control of Infectious Diseases in Resource-Poor Countries: Malaria Diagnosis, Fever Home-Based-Management, and New Tools—was organized by the European Commission, Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The workshop reviewed the status of current malaria diagnostics and identified where gaps exist. Rapid diagnostic test (RDT) product testing is currently underway, with phases one and two complete, and phase three in progress. Researchers are comparing existing tests head-to-head to determine which tests perform best in different environments.

The need for affordable tests to support malaria elimination was highlighted during the workshop. Strong, cost-effective tests exist for diagnosing cases of active malaria in areas of high parasite prevalence, but more sensitive tests are needed to detect low levels of parasitemia in asymptomatic individuals in order to track and eliminate the remaining parasites in a region. Workshop participants formed the following three working groups to elucidate additional research priorities:

Ensuring and Measuring Access to RDTs and the Impact of Effective and Timely Treatment: Focused on cost effectiveness of RDTs, innovative ways to monitor commodity supply, ways to obtain reliable case management reporting data, and the role of SMEs in enhancing access and quality assurance.
Home and Community Based Management of Fever: Accessibility/Effectiveness of Intervention: Focused on integration of diagnostics into the public health system, approaches to increase the use of diagnostics in community settings, operational research related to initiatives on community case management, and identifying interim and final targets to assess progress.
New Tools and Strategies in the Context of Elimination: Focus on Malaria Detection in Low Disease Transmission Regions and Tests to Guide Management of Both Malaria and Non-malarial Fever: Focused on the new tools that are needed in elimination efforts and low transmission zones, multi-disease tests to measure severity of illness, and linkages to research priorities that are already developed.

Feedback from the working groups began to develop the justification for calls for proposals addressing gaps in malaria diagnostics and prioritizing where the needs are greatest. The goal of the workshop coordinators is to summarize these needs and priorities and make this information available to the greater scientific and public health communities. While the call for proposals has yet to receive approval from the EU member states and be finalized, one can expect that the current global financial situation will play a role in the size of the program and the number of projects that are awarded.

The outcomes of the meeting have been finalized and published online:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/health/infectious-diseases/poverty-diseases/event-01_en.html