Feasibility and Safety of Combining Anti-malarial With Deworming Drugs in African Children
Status:
Not yet recruiting
Trial end date:
2023-09-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Malaria remains a major health problem, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where more than 90%
of the disease and deaths occur in children. Adding to this high burden among the children is
the co-existence of intestinal and genito-urinary worms. Prominent among these are
soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis. Existing control programmes for the worms are
operating below the expected level, despite the commitments and support that followed the
2012 London Declaration of achieving 75% treatment coverage by 2020. On the other hand, a
malaria prevention programme, called Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC), introduced in
the same year 2012 has achieved more than 75% treatment coverage and prevented 75-85% cases
of uncomplicated and severe malaria in children. This encouraging development supports the
need to explore the strategies involving the integration of worm control with successful
platforms such as SMC. This would align worm and malaria control with the WHO road map for
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) of ending the neglect to attain Sustainable Development
Goals by eradicating diseases of poverty and promoting health and well-being for those at
risk. Given this context, it is important to develop a treatment approach that combines
malaria and helminth control in an integrated framework that will be safe, effective and easy
to deliver. This study will, therefore, investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of
co-administration of anthelminthic and SMC drugs in a high-risk paediatric population living
in a malaria-helminth co-endemic setting in Senegal, West Africa. This study is designed to
test the hypothesis that co-administration of SMC and anthelminthic drugs will be safe and
tolerated among children aged 1-14 years and that the incidence of side effects will not be
significant. The objectives of this study are to assess the safety, tolerability, and effects
of co-administration of SMC and anthelminthic drugs among the children