Malaria Consortium is pleased to announce a two-year extension to the COMDIS-HSD Research Programme Consortium (RPC). This project began in 2011 and has already concluded successful research and interventions in Mozambique, Myanmar, Uganda and Zambia.
The extension, running to December 2018, will see the project expand to Ethiopia. A new study, targeting neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), will pilot-test materials and processes designed to improve capacity to detect, manage and record such diseases at primary healthcare level in Ethiopia.
This extension represents the next phase of a productive partnership within the RPC that has produced a number of successful outcomes to date. Through our COMDIS-HSD work, we executed a study of community case management of pneumonia, which highlighted the potential of community-level interventions, including the capability of community health workers to measure respiratory rates and prescribe antibiotics according to guidelines.
In Uganda, COMDIS-HSD funding allowed us to pilot-test an intervention designed to increase women’s protection from malaria in pregnancy. Our research found that sending educational text messages to health workers providing antenatal care is a promising approach for increasing the number of women who receive at least two doses of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy. This treatment is a key component of the prevention and control of malaria in pregnancy in malaria endemic countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
COMDIS-HSD is funded by UK aid from the UK government. Malaria Consortium is one of six RPC partner organisations, alongside lead partner, the Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development at the University of Leeds, and country partners including ARK Foundation (Bangladesh), ASD (Pakistan), HERD (Nepal), and Good Shepherd Hospital in Swaziland. The extension amounts a £2m grant for the COMDIS-HSD RPC, with £358k awarded to Malaria Consortium.
More information about this extension can be found on the project page here.
More information about the wider COMDIS-HSD partnership can be found on the group's website here.
Country: Ethiopia
Keywords: Research