Vivax Elimination With Tafenoquine (VET) Study

Summary

Theoretically, so long as there is a sink-source for malaria, transmission could be sustained at very low level (even at sub-microscopic oscillation) and reintroduce malaria either as sporadic cases or as resurgent outbreak. Uncertainty or shortage in financing has typically limited the malaria control or elimination projects to go further beyond the "Pre-elimination phase". Since malaria is no longer a top scoring mortality in national statistics in South East Asia, the governments/stakeholders are less willing to allocate from the austerity budget. There are proven evidence of resurgences after cessation of intervention programs where over 90% of all resurgence events were attributed to the interruption of malaria control programmes. In Karen state Myanmar-Thailand border, multiple factors including a cascade of political, financial, and logistical fiascos have compounded on the ongoing malaria elimination activities. Deleterious impacts after military coup since 2021 February including cessation of foreign investment, humanitarian aids, Civil Dis-obedience Movement of government staff and resuming armed-conflicts have strained the nearly failed health infrastructure of the country to a collapse stage. Interruption of the National Malaria Control activities due to the health system failure and accelerating combats countrywide could inevitably lead to the overturn in recently achieved malaria pre-elimination status especially in Karen state. The disruption in health services within Myanmar is already resulting in an increase in malaria. Supply of the first line antimalarial drug artemether-lumefantrine, and other essential malaria control interventions, has been interrupted. The study is proposed to evaluate the impact of Mass Drug Administration (MDA) in 3 villages in Karen state with consistently high incidence of P. vivax and spatially clustered within 5 km radius. This proposal outlines a study to assess the feasibility and the safety of tafenoquine MDA.

Timeline

Start

2025-02-19

Primary completion

2025-10-04

Completion

2025-10-04

Publications

• Results Cohen JM, Smith DL, Cotter C, Ward A, Yamey G, Sabot OJ, Moonen B. Malaria resurgence: a systematic review and assessment of its causes. Malar J. 2012 Apr 24;11:122. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-11-122.
• Results Jaramillo-Ochoa R, Sippy R, Farrell DF, Cueva-Aponte C, Beltran-Ayala E, Gonzaga JL, Ordonez-Leon T, Quintana FA, Ryan SJ, Stewart-Ibarra AM. Effects of Political Instability in Venezuela on Malaria Resurgence at Ecuador-Peru Border, 2018. Emerg Infect Dis. 2019 Apr;25(4):834-836. doi: 10.3201/eid2504.181355. Epub 2019 Apr 17.
• Results Nguyen TN, von Seidlein L, Nguyen TV, Truong PN, Hung SD, Pham HT, Nguyen TU, Le TD, Dao VH, Mukaka M, Day NP, White NJ, Dondorp AM, Thwaites GE, Hien TT. The persistence and oscillations of submicroscopic Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax infections over time in Vietnam: an open cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2018 May;18(5):565-572. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(18)30046-X. Epub 2018 Feb 2.
• Results Okell LC, Bousema T, Griffin JT, Ouedraogo AL, Ghani AC, Drakeley CJ. Factors determining the occurrence of submicroscopic malaria infections and their relevance for control. Nat Commun. 2012;3:1237. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2241.
• Results Poonkham, J. (2022). A Paradise Lost in the Indo-Pacific? Great Power Politics and International Relations of the Myanmar Tragedy. In: Yamahata, C., Anderson, B. (eds) Demystifying Myanmar's Transition and Political Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6675-9_11

Drugs

Indications