There are about 9 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Central African Republic. 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.
Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death in children under five, althought it is both preventable and treatable. The causative factors of diarrheal diseases vary a lot from region to region (bacteria, viruses, parasites). Diarrhea is one of the main causes of malnutrition in children under five years of age. Inversely, nutritional deficiency, particularly vitamin C deficiency, can be a risk factor for diarrhea. The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of vitamin C deficiency on diarrheal infection in children aged 2 to 5 years in countries with a high diarrheal rate. This pilot case-control study will be conducted in metropolitan France, Africa and South America. This question will be addressed by comparing vitamin C levels in children with diarrhea, regardless of the infectious agent, to levels in age- and sex-matched controls.
The aim of this open-label randomized controlled trial conducted in four African countries (Madagascar, Niger, Central African Republic and Senegal) is to compare three strategies of renutrition for moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) in children based on modulation of the gut microbiota with enriched flours alone, enriched flours with prebiotics or enriched flours coupled with antibiotic treatment. Cognitive development of children (Senegal) will also be studied and compared.
Given the resistance emergence of malaria in pregnant women receiving intermittent preventive treatment with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPT-SP) and the burden of this infection among pregnant women infected by HIV it is urgent to seek a more effective alternative treatment to optimize the prevention of malaria. Cotrimoxazole (CTM), actually administered daily as a prophylactic mean to opportunistic infections for HIV infected patients, showed encouraging results in preventing malaria in pregnant women. However, these results must be confirmed by randomized trials, particularly in pregnant women. The main objective of this clinical trial is to compare the efficacy of cotrimoxazole (CTM), administered once daily with IPT-SP (3 curative doses spaced one month) on placental parasitaemia in pregnant women infected with HIV and cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4) > 350 cells/mm3. The main hypothesis is based on the premise that cotrimoxazole is more effective than IPT-SP for placental parasitaemia. This might be due to the higher plasma concentration of cotrimoxazole attained with daily doses. If this hypothesis is proven, cotrimoxazole could be recommended as prophylaxis for HIV-positive pregnant women, whatever their CD4+ cell count. In this study, the investigators will also test the hypothesis that the strains of Plasmodium falciparum isolated from HIV-positive pregnant women express more dhfr and dhps resistance markers.
This clinical trial is designed to prove the efficacy and safety of Fexinidazole as an oral treatment for human african trypanosomiasis in advanced stage. The Fexinidazole is compared to reference treatment NECT. The trial will try to demonstrate that Fexinidazole is not inferior to NECT treatment.
This study will examine changes in mother-child relationships when mothers are pregnant, because this period may involve conflicts between mothers and children. A widely held evolutionary theory postulates that because parents and offspring share only about 50 percent of their genes, conflicts occur and would most likely occur at times when parental investment decreases. Offspring benefit from obtaining maximal parental investment and may demand more investment than parents are willing to give at times, perhaps because the parent would better benefit from directing their energy to other pursuits, such as to other offspring or to work. This study will explore the following: - How pregnant mothers treat their children, in terms of caregiving techniques; - Whether mothers exhibit different caregiving patterns at different stages of pregnancy; - Whether mother-child conflicts arise during pregnancy, and, if so, when during pregnancy they are most likely to occur; and; - Whether offspring overtly resist changes in maternal behavior during pregnancy, and, if so, what behaviors children use to resist these changes. All pregnant Bofi forager women living in settlements near the villages of Ngotto, Poutem, Bambondji, and Grima (in the Central African Republic) who have one or more living offspring and have no serious health problems related to pregnancy may be eligible for this study. Bofi foragers are among the few remaining hunters and gatherers and, as such, offer an opportunity to examine child developmental theories that have been well studied among industrialized Euro-American cultures, but neglected cross-culturally. Furthermore, studies among contemporary hunter-gatherers provide insight into the evolutionary past of humans, as humans have lived as hunter-gatherers for about 99 percent of prehistory. Participating pregnant Bofi forager women will be interviewed for demographic information, family genealogy, fertility history, and parenting beliefs. The women and their children will be observed for 4 hours on two different days as they carry out their normal daily activities. Attention will be paid to the mother's investment in terms of direct care of the children, including behaviors such as holding, cleaning, comforting, grooming, and feeding children.
The CCCH tandem zinc finger proteins are members of a small family of proteins that regulate the stability of certain types of mRNA containing so-called class II AU-rich elements in their 3'-untranslated regions. The best studied member of this protein family, tristetraprolin (TTP), exerts this destabilizing effect on at least two mRNAs coding for physiologically and medically important cytokines, tumor necrosis factor alpha and granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor. The physiological functions of the other two members of this protein family in mammals, 11B and 11D, are not known, but in experimental transfection studies they too can destabilize mRNAs containing this type of AU-rich element. As part of the Environmental Genome Project, we resequenced the protein coding portions of the human genes encoding these three proteins, and uncovered a dinucleotide splice site mutation in the 11B gene in one of 144 alleles sequenced. We showed that this mutation created a novel restriction fragment length polymorphism, and that this mutation resulted in the failure of splicing and expression of the mRNA encoded by the mutant allele. Based on our previous data with mice completely deficient in TTP, we anticipate that complete deficiency of this protein, and possibly its partial deficiency, would result in human disease. The mutant allele was from an anonymous adult Aka Pygmy women from the Central African Republic. We propose to genotype up to 1000 members of this ethnic group after obtaining buccal cell DNA from them. This will give us an approximate idea of the prevalence of this mutation in this population. If the mutation is found in a significant number of living individuals in this initial screen, then we will propose a later study of the individuals who have this genotype and their families. This second study, which will be reviewed separately, will attempt to correlate this genotype with a human trait or phenotype and possible y treatable human disease.
Herpes virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection - as a cofactor of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission - can be targeted by anti-herpetic specific drugs, either as a continuous prophylactic treatment during its asymptomatic shedding phase, or as an episodic treatment during clinically-apparent genital ulcerations. The main objective of this trial will be to demonstrate that acyclovir treatment given during clinical episodes (primary infection or recurrences) can reduce genital shedding of HIV, thereby contributing to a reduction of HIV infectiousness of dually infected individuals (HIV+/HSV+).