There are about 335 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Malawi. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
A couples-based alcohol-reduction and economic and relationship-strengthening intervention for HIV-affected couples in Malawi.
Sickle Cell Anaemia (SCA) is an inherited disease that makes the body produce red blood cells with abnormal sickle-shaped cells. The sickle-shaped cells are rigid, not flexible and break up easily resulting in anaemia. The abnormal cells also stick to the vessel walls, causing a blockage that slows or stops the flow of blood. When this happens, oxygen cannot reach nearby tissues. The lack of oxygen can cause attacks of sudden, severe pain, called pain crises, stroke or damage to important organs such as the spleen. All of these can lead to death. These attacks can occur without warning and are often started and made worse by infections such as malaria. Therefore, in many countries in Africa where malaria is common, children with SCA are given malaria medicines to prevent the infection. However, many of the medicines do not work effectively, are too difficult to take or they have side effects, resulting in poor adherence. The aim of this study is to find safe, acceptable and effective medicines for malaria prevention in children with SCA in eastern and southern Africa. The investigators propose to conduct a study to find out whether giving weekly doses of dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine, also called DP, is safe, more effective, acceptable and cost-effective than the current strategy of monthly sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) to prevent malaria in children with sickle cell anaemia. Overall, 548 children aged 6 months to 15 years will be chosen randomly to receive either weekly DP or monthly SP for about 18 months. To test if the study medicine is effective, the study will compare the case burden of malaria. The investigators will also monitor every child for any type of illness, blood transfusions and other complications of sickle cell anaemia and admissions to the hospital. In addition, the study will evaluate the impact of DP on the development of resistance by malaria parasites. The study will also include nested safety studies on the effect of DP on the heart. All study participants will receive all the other usual care and treatments, including patient education on home care, and daily penicillin if younger than 5 years. If proven safe and efficacious, chemoprophylaxis with DP may decrease the incidence of malaria in children with SCA, prevent ill-health and deaths, and improve wellbeing.
Anxiety is a common thing that patients experience when they are preparing to have a surgery. When this anxiety is not properly treated, the patients tend to consume more drugs in the operating room and it also cause their pain to increase after surgery. Pain after surgery is common among patients who have just had surgery. The pain that women who have had mastectomy feels after surgery is usually treated using pain killers. Yet, the pain killers are not enough to reduce the pain or cause some unwanted outcomes for the patients. Therefore, supplementing pain killers with music therapy appears to be a good way to reduce the pain and the unwanted outcomes that may arise from taking too much pain killers. This research is aimed to test how effective music that is selected by patients, considers their culture and psychological needs can be helpful in reducing anxiety before surgery and pain after surgery. Also its effect on blood pressure, breathing rate and pulse will be tested. The researcher also hope to know how satisfied patients who consent to participate in the study are with their pain management. The study will be done in two Nigerian hospitals and will mainly include women who have cancer, are above the age of 18, scheduled to have mastectomy, can read or write English or Pidgin, without any mental health challenge and agrees to participate in the study. This study hope to enrol up to 112 women and put them into two groups randomly, one group will receive the music intervention and the other group will receive the normal care provided by the hospital. Participants in the music intervention group will be added to a WhatsApp group on the week of their surgery. The WhatsApp session will be three times within the week of the surgery and each session will be about 30 minutes long. This study will use a combination of very short videos and voice notes (3 minutes) as well as real time chats and pictures to enhance communication on the group chat. The researcher will initiate discussions about participant's experience with breast cancer diagnosis, teach them about anxiety before surgery and pain after surgery. Then, they will ask questions that will be answered and also choose their type of music and send it to the group. The songs will be downloaded into a device and given to them on the day of surgery. They will continue to listen to the music after their surgery for the next two days. Before participants receive the music on the day of surgery, anxiety level and vital signs will be assessed. After the surgery, participant's pain level, vital signs and satisfaction with pain management before and after the intervention will be assessed. Those in the second group will receive a one-on-one chat with the researcher about pain after surgery. For all the participants, the study will be completed two days after the surgery.
The intervention includes provision of transport reimbursement for men who will undergo voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC), intensified health education by a VMMC mobilizer and a male and female VMMC champion and use of a cell phone short messaging service (SMS) and/or telephonic tracing to remind clients of their VMMC appointment (the RITe intervention). The investigators will assess the uptake of VMMC, and acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility of the RITe intervention among uncircumcised men attending a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) clinic and health care workers. This intervention was initially designed to include escorting men interested in circumcision from the STI clinic to a VMMC clinic co-located in the same facility. However, the VMMC clinic space was repurposed to a COVID-19 isolation unit therefore clinic escorts were excluded. In Lieu of clinic escorts, participants will be linked to the nearest health facility of choice where VMMC services are provided by the VMMC mobilizer. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the impact of using transport reimbursement, intensified health education and SMS/telephonic tracing in increasing the uptake of voluntary medical male circumcision at this clinic.
This is a prospective observational cohort study of 2820 patients on first-line ART switching to a DTG-based first-line regimen, according to the standard of care. The study is conducted in Malawi and Zambia, in ART programs that participate in the IeDEA collaboration. Sequencing will be done on blood samples of patients with a viral load above 400 copies/mL to identify mutations.
People living with HIV (PLHIV) who require admission to hospital in WHO Africa region have poor outcomes. TB is very common in this group, but can be difficult to diagnose. The CASTLE trial aims to determine whether systematic screening for tuberculosis using digital chest X-ray with computer-aided diagnosis (DCXR-CAD) plus urine lipoarabinomannan testing with Fujifilm SILVAMP TB LAM (FujiLAM) plus usual care can improve admission outcomes for hospitalised PLHIV, compared to usual care alone. Our study is a single centre, unblinded, cluster-randomised (by day of admission) trial of DCXR-CAD plus FujiLAM plus usual care vs. usual care alone for screening for TB in unselected adult PLHIV admitted to a district general hospital in Malawi. The primary outcome is the proportion of people starting TB treatment by the time of death or hospital discharge. The secondary outcomes are all-cause mortality at 56 days from enrolment, proportion of people starting TB treatment within 24 hours from enrolment, and proportion of people with undiagnosed TB. In the CASTLE study we collect a single sputum sample for M. tb culture from participants and undiagnosed TB specifically refers to a person who did not start TB treatment by the time of death or discharge from hospital and has a M. tb cultured from their sputum sample. Alongside the two trial arms, a third smaller diagnostic cohort arm (1 in 9 of admission days / trial clusters) will explore the range of underlying infectious pathology. The diagnostic cohort does not contribute to trial outcomes.
Background: Clinical guidelines and policies often fail to achieve high levels of delivery of intended clinical interventions. The difference in what investigators know works and what is actually delivered at the clinic-level to patients, is known as the "science-to-service gap." In the realm of tuberculosis (TB) prevention, this gap is reflected in <20% of TB preventive therapy (TPT)-eligible persons living with HIV (PLWH) being offered or initiated on isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) in many settings. Recent innovation in TPT have brought new pharmacological options allowing for shorter courses, intermittent dosing, or both. A 12-dose once-weekly rifapentine and isoniazid (3HP) regimen has been demonstrated to be effective and well tolerated. This regimen has several potential advantages over IPT; however, if patients are never assessed for 3HP eligibility and 3HP is not prescribed, TPT packets will remain on pharmacy shelves and the potential health benefits will not reach those who need it. The overarching goal of this study is to identify a generalizable approach to overcome current barriers to delivery of TPT in order to achieve high levels of TPT delivery during routine care in public clinics. Investigators are proposing a choice architecture that makes prescribing TPT the "default" or standard option and that for TPT not to be prescribed will require a choice by a clinician to "opt-out" of TPT for a specific patient. Methods: Investigators will use a cluster randomized design with the larger IMPAACT4TB (I4TB) program to deliver 3HP to countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A subset of countries and clinics within these I4TB countries will be included with each clinic the unit of randomization. Clinics within study countries will be randomized to one of two strategies: (1) standard implementation within the UNITAID project (clinic training on TPT along with posters and other standard medication material) and (2) choice architecture default TPT. Clinical process data will be used to assess the effectiveness of each strategy to determine the proportion of PLWH (1) screened for TB preventive therapy, (2) eligible for TPT, and (3) prescribed TPT. Significance: Identifying a pragmatic approach will lead the way for improving TPT prescribing across the study sites. It will furthermore contribute to implementation science at large in describing implementation strategies that may be applied to clinic-level implementation of other innovations.
About 1600 children 6 to 24 months old will be enrolled from 8 egg hubs. 4 hubs will be receive social marketing campaign to raise awareness about the benefits of eggs while the other 4 will not receive social marketing campaign. Children will provide a urine sample for analysis of metabolites to correlate with egg consumption.
The purpose of the research study is to collect preliminary data to which future outcomes after implementing quality improvement projects or research will be compared. There will be observation of the labor and delivery services received and resulting outcomes of women and infants who deliver at private health facilities in urban Malawi. Data will be collected at admission, delivery, and discharge from women and providers on patient characteristics, labor and obstetric characteristics, delivery factors, and pregnancy outcomes that result during the course of the hospitalization. This will include the vital status of the mother and the infant. The overall hypothesis is that cesarean birth rates will be higher than the ecologically supported 10% cesarean birth rate, and that there may be cesareans that are performed without clear medical indication.
The purpose of this study is to learn more about the acute response to infection with and recovery from the virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Some people know this virus by the name "coronavirus." It can cause the disease called COVID-19. The information gained from the study can be used to help develop better tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease and may help in developing future vaccines, other prevention strategies, and treatments.