Quantifying primaquine effectiveness and improving adherence: a round table discussion of the APMEN Vivax Working Group.

The goal to eliminate malaria from the Asia-Pacific by 2030 will require the safe and widespread delivery of effective radical cure of malaria. In October 2017, the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network Vivax Working Group met to discuss the impediments to primaquine (PQ) radical cure, how these can be overcome and the methodological difficulties in assessing clinical effectiveness of radical cure. The salient discussions of this meeting which involved 110 representatives from 18 partner countries and 21 institutional partner organizations are reported. Context specific strategies to improve adherence are needed to increase understanding and awareness of PQ within affected communities; these must include education and health promotion programs. Lessons learned from other disease programs highlight that a package of approaches has the greatest potential to change patient and prescriber habits, however optimizing the components of this approach and quantifying their effectiveness is challenging. In a trial setting, the reactivity of participants results in patients altering their behaviour and creates inherent bias. Although bias can be reduced by integrating data collection into the routine health care and surveillance systems, this comes at a cost of decreasing the detection of clinical outcomes. Measuring adherence and the factors that relate to it, also requires an in-depth understanding of the context and the underlying sociocultural logic that supports it. Reaching the elimination goal will require innovative approaches to improve radical cure for vivax malaria, as well as the methods to evaluate its effectiveness

Mapping the stability of malaria hotspots in Bangladesh from 2013 to 2016

Background Malaria claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year, most of them children. A “malaria-free world” is the World Health Organization’s vision, but elimination from the southeast Asian Region is hampered by factors including anti-malarial resistance and systematic underreporting. Malaria is a significant public health problem in Bangladesh and while there have been recent gains in control, there is large spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the disease burden. This study aims to determine the pattern and stability of malaria hotspots in Bangladesh with the end goal of informing intervention planning for elimination. Results Malaria in Bangladesh exhibited highly seasonal, hypoendemic transmission in geographic hotspots, which remained conserved over time. The southeast areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts were identified as malaria hotspots for all 4 years examined. Similarly, areas in Sunamganj and Netrakona districts in the Northeast were hotspots for 2013–2016. Highly stable hotspots from 1 year predicted the following year’s hotspot locations in the southeast of Bangladesh. Hotspots did not appear to act as sources of spread with no evidence of consistent patterns of contiguous spread or recession of hotspots as high or low transmission seasons progressed. Conclusions Areas were identified with temporal and spatial clustering of high malaria incidence in Bangladesh. Further studies are required to understand the vector, sociodemographic and disease dynamics within these hotspots. Given the low caseloads occurring in the low transmission seasons, and the conserved nature of malaria hotspots, directing resources towards these areas may be an efficient way to achieve malaria elimination in Bangladesh

Mapping the stability of malaria hotspots in Bangladesh from 2013 to 2016

Background Malaria claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year, most of them children. A “malaria-free world” is the World Health Organization’s vision, but elimination from the southeast Asian Region is hampered by factors including anti-malarial resistance and systematic underreporting. Malaria is a significant public health problem in Bangladesh and while there have been recent gains in control, there is large spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the disease burden. This study aims to determine the pattern and stability of malaria hotspots in Bangladesh with the end goal of informing intervention planning for elimination. Results Malaria in Bangladesh exhibited highly seasonal, hypoendemic transmission in geographic hotspots, which remained conserved over time. The southeast areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts were identified as malaria hotspots for all 4 years examined. Similarly, areas in Sunamganj and Netrakona districts in the Northeast were hotspots for 2013–2016. Highly stable hotspots from 1 year predicted the following year’s hotspot locations in the southeast of Bangladesh. Hotspots did not appear to act as sources of spread with no evidence of consistent patterns of contiguous spread or recession of hotspots as high or low transmission seasons progressed. Conclusions Areas were identified with temporal and spatial clustering of high malaria incidence in Bangladesh. Further studies are required to understand the vector, sociodemographic and disease dynamics within these hotspots. Given the low caseloads occurring in the low transmission seasons, and the conserved nature of malaria hotspots, directing resources towards these areas may be an efficient way to achieve malaria elimination in Bangladesh

Mapping the travel patterns of people with malaria in Bangladesh

BACKGROUND:Spread of malaria and antimalarial resistance through human movement present major threats to current goals to eliminate the disease. Bordering the Greater Mekong Subregion, southeast Bangladesh is a potentially important route of spread to India and beyond, but information on travel patterns in this area are lacking. METHODS:Using a standardised short survey tool, 2090 patients with malaria were interviewed at 57 study sites in 2015-2016 about their demographics and travel patterns in the preceding 2 months. RESULTS:Most travel was in the south of the study region between Cox's Bazar district (coastal region) to forested areas in Bandarban (31% by days and 45% by nights), forming a source-sink route. Less than 1% of travel reported was between the north and south forested areas of the study area. Farmers (21%) and students (19%) were the top two occupations recorded, with 67 and 47% reporting travel to the forest respectively. Males aged 25-49 years accounted for 43% of cases visiting forests but only 24% of the study population. Children did not travel. Women, forest dwellers and farmers did not travel beyond union boundaries. Military personnel travelled the furthest especially to remote forested areas. CONCLUSIONS:The approach demonstrated here provides a framework for identifying key traveller groups and their origins and destinations of travel in combination with knowledge of local epidemiology to inform malaria control and elimination efforts. Working with the NMEP, the findings were used to derive a set of policy recommendations to guide targeting of interventions for elimination

Mapping imported malaria in Bangladesh using parasite genetic and human mobility data

For countries aiming for malaria elimination, travel of infected individuals between endemic areas undermines local interventions. Quantifying parasite importation has therefore become a priority for national control programs. We analyzed epidemiological surveillance data, travel surveys, parasite genetic data, and anonymized mobile phone data to measure the spatial spread of malaria parasites in southeast Bangladesh. We developed a genetic mixing index to estimate the likelihood of samples being local or imported from parasite genetic data and inferred the direction and intensity of parasite flow between locations using an epidemiological model integrating the travel survey and mobile phone calling data. Our approach indicates that, contrary to dogma, frequent mixing occurs in low transmission regions in the southwest, and elimination will require interventions in addition to reducing imported infections from forested regions. Unlike risk maps generated from clinical case counts alone, therefore, our approach distinguishes areas of frequent importation as well as high transmission

Quantifying primaquine effectiveness and improving adherence: a round table discussion of the APMEN Vivax Working Group

The goal to eliminate malaria from the Asia-Pacific by 2030 will require the safe and widespread delivery of effective radical cure of malaria. In October 2017, the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network Vivax Working Group met to discuss the impediments to primaquine (PQ) radical cure, how these can be overcome and the methodological difficulties in assessing clinical effectiveness of radical cure. The salient discussions of this meeting which involved 110 representatives from 18 partner countries and 21 institutional partner organizations are reported. Context specific strategies to improve adherence are needed to increase understanding and awareness of PQ within affected communities; these must include education and health promotion programs. Lessons learned from other disease programs highlight that a package of approaches has the greatest potential to change patient and prescriber habits, however optimizing the components of this approach and quantifying their effectiveness is challenging. In a trial setting, the reactivity of participants results in patients altering their behaviour and creates inherent bias. Although bias can be reduced by integrating data collection into the routine health care and surveillance systems, this comes at a cost of decreasing the detection of clinical outcomes. Measuring adherence and the factors that relate to it, also requires an in-depth understanding of the context and the underlying sociocultural logic that supports it. Reaching the elimination goal will require innovative approaches to improve radical cure for vivax malaria, as well as the methods to evaluate its effectiveness

Quantifying primaquine effectiveness and improving adherence: a round table discussion of the APMEN Vivax Working Group

The goal to eliminate malaria from the Asia-Pacific by 2030 will require the safe and widespread delivery of effective radical cure of malaria. In October 2017, the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network Vivax Working Group met to discuss the impediments to primaquine (PQ) radical cure, how these can be overcome and the methodological difficulties in assessing clinical effectiveness of radical cure. The salient discussions of this meeting which involved 110 representatives from 18 partner countries and 21 institutional partner organizations are reported. Context specific strategies to improve adherence are needed to increase understanding and awareness of PQ within affected communities; these must include education and health promotion programs. Lessons learned from other disease programs highlight that a package of approaches has the greatest potential to change patient and prescriber habits, however optimizing the components of this approach and quantifying their effectiveness is challenging. In a trial setting, the reactivity of participants results in patients altering their behaviour and creates inherent bias. Although bias can be reduced by integrating data collection into the routine health care and surveillance systems, this comes at a cost of decreasing the detection of clinical outcomes. Measuring adherence and the factors that relate to it, also requires an in-depth understanding of the context and the underlying sociocultural logic that supports it. Reaching the elimination goal will require innovative approaches to improve radical cure for vivax malaria, as well as the methods to evaluate its effectiveness