There are about 247 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Ghana. 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.
This planned randomized controlled trial will evaluate a bivalent HPV vaccine, Cecolin®, in alternate 2-dose regimens, compared to an established HPV vaccine. Gardasil® used as the comparator vaccine, as this vaccine is most widely used in low- and low-middle income countries.
The aim of the Adoption study is to determine how best to encourage people to adopt clean cookstoves in order to diminish the global health risk of household air pollution. The study harnesses an existing cohort in Ghana to study factors that increase the adoption of clean cookstoves, and to test strategies to promote adoption and continued use. Limited past research has shown that the demand for clean cookstoves is low, and that households continue to use traditional hearths even when they have clean cookstoves. This behavior threatens to undermine clean cookstove intervention programs, such as those promoted by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. The proposed study aims to ascertain the demand curve for liquified petroleum gas (LPG) in the Kintampo North Municipality and South district.
This will be a two-phase protocol. Phase 1 will include the development of the peanut-based school food, and a small formative research study on the acceptability and consumption of the school food study intervention. This will occur among children 5-12 yr in the Mion district, 60 school aged children between 6-12 years old will be recruited to participate in a 3 week consumption and acceptability study. An integral part of the food development process is acceptability testing. A child must like and want to eat a new food if it is to be consumed as prescribed and effective in potential improving linear growth and cognitive performance. This study will confirm that food developed for the school feeding clinical trial will be consumed as dosed and what additional snack food offerings may be useful in encouraging consumption. Phase 2 will be a individually randomized, investigator blinded, controlled clinical effectiveness trial of a peanut-based school meal with and without milk powder compared to a control meal for linear growth and cognitive performance. 880 children 5 to 12 years old, healthy, enrolled in primary school, including kindergarten at 6 selected schools in the Mion district will be randomized to receive one of three school foods, a peanut-based food with milk, a peanut-based food without milk and a control group composed of commonly available tuber/cereal. The sample size accounts for up to 15% attrition for a final sample size of 750 with a total 250 eligible children enrolled in each group. Enrolled children will receive the meal daily during the school lunch period for an entire school year. At enrollment and upon completion, anthropometric measurements and body composition data will be collected and a tablet- based, language independent cognitive test battery will be administered. Basic demographic information and school attendance information will be collected as well.
The objective of CROWN CORONATION is the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 by using combinations of approved and safe repurposed interventions, with complementary mechanisms of action.
Evaluating a Postpartum Family Planning Package (PPFP) in a Hybrid Type II implementation study with a stepped-wedge design.
Globally, malaria prevalence in 2016 was reported to have increased with 445,000 deaths, 91% of which occurred in sub-Sahara Africa with more than 75% being children. Individuals who carry the malaria parasite can either be symptomatic (showing signs and symptoms) or asymptomatic (without signs and symptoms). Asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia pose a very serious threat to malaria control efforts as they serve as reservoirs that fuel the transmission process. Therefore, interventions that target community-wide clearance of asymptomatic parasitaemia can drastically reduce malaria prevalence in the population and lead to elimination especially in endemic areas. Mass parasite clearance can deplete the parasite reservoirs and lower the transmission potential. Efforts are ongoing to scale-up interventions that work such as use of Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN), Intermittent Preventive Treatment in children (IPTc), and test, treat and track (TTT). However, there is need for mass testing, treatment and tracking (MTTT) of the whole population to reduce the parasite load before implementing the aforementioned interventions. Though, Seasonal Malaria Chemoprophylaxis (SMC) is adopted for selected localities in Ghana, the impact of such interventions could be enhanced, if combined with MTTT at baseline to reduce the parasite load. IPT of children in Ghana has demonstrated a parasite load reduction from 25% to 1%. However, unanswered questions include - could this be scaled up? What can be the coverage? What is needed for MTTT scale -up? In a pilot in Ghana, a coverage of more than 75% was achieved in target communities and reduced asymptomatic parasitaemia by 24% from July 2017 to July 2018. It is important to generate time series data to better analyse and understand the prevalence trends as well as the bottlenecks. In designing interventions that aim at reducing the burden of malaria in children under five, for example, MTTT has largely been left out. This study explores the scale-up of interventions that work using community volunteers, hypothesising that implementing MTTT complemented by community-based management can reduce the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasite carriage in endemic communities. The effect of the interventions will be observed by comparing baseline data to evaluation data. This study will document the challenges and bottlenecks associated with scaling-up of MTTT to inform future efforts to scale-up the intervention.
Using a public health facility Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana the overall goal of the research is to examine: 1) the feasibility of implementing respectful care modules (RMC-M) in Kumasi, Ghana; 2) whether exposure to RMC-M increases participants perception of respectful maternity care in a public hospital setting in Ghana; and 3) the efficacy of RMC-M in changing midwives' attitudes, behaviors and clinical practice patterns. To achieve Aim 1, qualitative and quantitative study designs will be used to assess for reliability of implementation, usefulness, and patient responsiveness. Based on data collected, feasibility will be examined and the RMC-M will be further modified as needed prior to beginning Aim 2. To achieve Aim 2, a two group study design will be used, with one group of midwives receiving training on the RMC- M and the other not receiving any training. Participants receiving care from these two groups of midwives will be followed through intrapartum and surveyed postpartum to examine their perceptions of the care they received. To achieve Aim 3, a pre-post study design will examine whether expose to a RMC-M changes midwives' attitudes, behaviors, and clinical care of participants during labor and delivery.
The primary goal of this pilot study (R21) is to address the urgent need for theoretically and empirically informed interventions that prevent poor female youth's rural-to-urban migration for child labor in low and middle-income countries. The study will address the following specific aims: Aim 1: Pilot test the (i) feasibility and acceptability of ANZANSI; and (ii) preliminary impact of ANZANSI by comparing the control arm to the treatment arm on specific child development outcomes; Aim 2: Explore multi- level factors (individual, family, and programmatic) impacting participation in and experiences with the ANZANSI.
This DOLF study will investigate the safety and effectiveness of IDA treatment in persons with onchocerciasis when it is administered after pre-treatment with ivermectin to clear or greatly reduce microfilariae from the skin and eyes.
Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are a group of parasitic worms that infect millions of children in sub-tropical and tropical countries, resulting in malnutrition, growth stunting, intellectual retardation and cognitive deficits. To control the morbidity due to these worms, school-based deworming programs are implemented, in which anthelminthic drugs are administered to children without prior diagnosis. The continued fight against these worms is aided by the London declaration on neglected tropical diseases, which helps sustain and expand global drug donation program, resulting in an unprecedented growth of deworming programs. However, the high degree of drug pressure makes deworming programs vulnerable to the development of anthelmintic resistance because they only rely on one drug with sometimes suboptimal efficacy and there is no availability of alternative drugs. Moreover, at present, there is no surveillance system to monitor the emergence and spread of anthelmintic resistance. It remains unclear to what extent the efficacy of drugs may have dropped and whether anthelmintic resistance is already present. This project aims to strengthen the monitoring and surveillance of drug efficacy and anthelmintic resistance in STH programs. As such, it will support deworming programs in their quest to eliminate STHs as a public health problem. The overall aim of this study is to pilot a surveillance system to assess anthelmintic drug efficacy and the emergence of AR in 9 countries were drug pressure has been high over a long period of time. The specific objectives are to: 1. Assess the prevalence of moderate/heavy intensity infections of the different STH 2. Assess the drug efficacy of a single dose of BZ drugs against STH infections in these countries 3. Assess the frequency of the ß-tubulin SNPs linked to BZ resistance 4. Identify implementation-related barriers and opportunities for monitoring drug efficacy and AR in national PC programs for STH. 5. Expand the Starworms repository of STH field samples