There are about 340 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.
The RTS, S/AS01E vaccine has been developed for routine immunization of children living in malaria- endemic countries of sub-Saharan Africa. This study is intended as a post-implementation safety study (after vaccine implementation), with the primary objective to evaluate the safety of vaccine after its administration. In addition to the primary objective, the study will also evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the vaccine.
This study is a multi-centre interventional study at seven tertiary paediatric surgery centres in Ghana, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania aimed at reducing mortality from gastroschisis.
A three arm cluster randomized trial randomizing government primary health clinics to a) standard of care (SOC) with clinic invitation only; b) standard of care (SOC) and one self-test kit to give to sexual partner (s); c) standard of care (SOC) and self-test kit and monetary incentive given to partner conditional on clinic attendance and completion of pre-set procedures to determine secondary accuracy. Trial to be conducted in four districts (Blantyre, Zomba, Machinga and Chikwawa) in Malawi in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. Two primary outcomes: 1. proportion of male partners of antenatal care clinic attendees reported by the woman to have tested for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) within 28 days of enrolling the woman 2. Number of new HIV positives identified by providing trial services to newly tested HIV positive clients in routine HIV testing service within 28 days of enrolling the index client. Data analysed as intention to treat with all eligible antenatal care (ANC) attendees and index clients at each health facility as the denominator, with unpaired t-test used to compare each intervention arm to the standard of care (SOC).
The aim of the study is to design and evaluate a school-based hand washing program for children in Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa, using a cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT), so as to improve proper hand washing, increase knowledge level and also reduce school absenteeism.
This registry study is intended to establish a large prospective longitudinal clinical cohort of lymphoma patients in Malawi, as such data is currently lacking from sub-Saharan Africa. The investigators will perform core biopsies on at least 800 consecutively enrolled patients with suspected lymphoma for accurate histopathologic characterization. The investigators will systematically collect relevant clinical and laboratory data, and longitudinally follow those with confirmed hematologic malignancies receiving treatment according to local standards of care to assess outcomes.
This community-based cross-sectional survey will estimate the frequency and risk factors of Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media and Hearing Impairment in Children ages 4-6 years in the Chikwawa District. These data will be useful for service planning, disease prevention efforts and to guide future research in this field.
Background and rationale: Children hospitalised with severe anaemia in Africa are at high risk of readmission or death within 6 months after discharge. No strategy specifically addresses this post-discharge period. In Malawi, 3 months of post-discharge malaria chemoprevention (PMC) with monthly 3-day treatment courses of artemether-lumefantrine (AL) in children with severe malarial anaemia prevented 31% of deaths and readmissions. The effect was in addition to the effect of insecticide-treated bednets. There is now need to design and evaluate effective delivery mechanism for PMC within the health system.
This epidemiology study is planned to run in parallel with the EPI-MAL-002 and EPI-MAL-003 studies, enrolling from the same health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) (or equivalent system) populations. The co-primary objectives are to produce longitudinal estimates of parasite prevalence in humans, and record malaria control measures usage in areas where EPI-MAL-002 and EPI-MAL-003 studies will take place.
The study will explore the effects of early intensive antiretroviral therapy (ART) with or without a broadly neutralizing antibody (bNAb) on achieving HIV remission (HIV RNA below the limit of detection of the assay) among infants living with HIV.
In sub-Saharan Africa, engaging men in HIV prevention, care, and treatment has proven challenging. Along all steps of the HIV care-seeking cascade, men exhibit worse care-seeking behaviors than women. They are less likely to be tested for HIV, initiate combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), and be retained in cART care. Additionally, men rarely engage in the care of their female sex partners, even though couple care-seeking is associated with marked improvements in condom use within HIV-discordant couples. Option B+, Malawi's program for providing immediate, lifelong combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) to all HIV-infected pregnant women at the time of diagnosis, is an important entry-point for involving male partners in care. This is a pilot randomized controlled trial (N=200 women) comparing two strategies of male partner involvement within the Option B+ program. In both arms (patient referral and contract referral) women will be encouraged to invite their male partners to accompany them to the clinic for couple HIV counseling and testing. In the contract referral arm, if the couple does not present within one week, the male partner will receive a home visit encouraging them to present to the clinic. We will compare the two arms for 1) uptake of couple HIV counseling and testing (cHCT), 2) uptake of cART for women, and 3) linkage to care for HIV-infected men. Results are expected to inform a larger trial and ultimately improve care-seeking in Malawi's HIV program. Objective 1: Determine acceptability of male partner recruitment for cHTC within an Option B+ context. We will assess acceptability of eligible females to participate in this pilot RCT and reasons for non-participation. Objective 2: Assess whether study arm (patient referral versus contract referral) is associated with cHTC uptake. We will conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) of male partner recruitment. This study will contain two arms: patient referral and contract referral for uptake of cHTC (primary outcome).