School-based Programme of Malaria Diagnosis and Treatment in Southern Malawi

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2015-03-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Malaria is an important contributor to ill-health experienced by school-children and may have profound consequences for their learning and educational achievement, and there is a small, but growing, body of evidence that suggests malaria control can help improve educational outcomes. In Malawi, school-aged children are estimated to experience 0.59 clinical attacks of malaria each year, equivalent to 2.1 million attacks among Malawian school-aged children. To avert this health burden and potential education consequences, Save the Children in partnership with the Malawian Ministry of Health is providing treatment of symptomatic malaria cases in schools in southern Malawi, as part of the provision of first aid kits (known as Learner Treatment Kits, LTKs) in schools. To evaluate the impact of this intervention, a cluster randomised trial is being conducted among 58 schools in Traditional Area Chikowi in Malawi, over 12 months. Twenty nine schools are randomly selected to receive LTKs, which include malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) to treat uncomplicated malaria, and 29 schools serve as the control group. The primary outcome is school attendance, with secondary outcomes of grade repetition, school drop-out and enrolment as well as morbidity, Plasmodium falciparum infection and anaemia. The study aims to conduct several quantitative and qualitative assessments to help evaluate the external validity of the findings.

• Phase: N/A
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Details

• Lead Sponsor: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Collaborator: Save the Children
• Treatments: Artemether; Artemether-lumefantrine combination; Artemether, Lumefantrine Drug Combination; Artemisinin; Artemisinins; Lumefantrine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Student enrolled at participating schools in standards 2, 4 and 6

• Provision of informed consent from parent or guardian

• Provision of assent by student

Exclusion Criteria:

• Student unwilling to participate in the study

• Student known to have a chronic medical condition, which will affect their school attendance