There are about 68 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Guinea-Bissau. 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.
Treatment: Immunization with peptide-mix and adjuvant. The vaccine should induce cellular immunity against HIV-1. Target group: Untreated healthy individuals with chronic HIV-1 infection. Purpose: The primary purpose is to evaluate tolerability and safety of the vaccine. The secondary purpose is to evaluate the clinical effect of the vaccination treatment as measured by induction of immunity, lowering of viral load, induction of escape mutations in the virus and improvement in the patient CD4 lymphocyte blood counts. The third purpose is to evaluate the feasibility of conducting a therapeutic HIV immunization study in a poorly-resourced African setting. Design: The experiment is designed as a blinded, placebo-controlled phase 1 clinical trial in HIV-1 infected individuals in West Africa. Numbers of individuals: Phase I: 20 fully evaluable HIV-1-infected patients should enter the study (15 vaccine treated and 5 placebo(saline) treated controls).
The routine treatment of children with antimalarials will be monitored. Children with a positive malaria film and/or a positive rapid diagnostic test (RDT) will have a capillary blood sample taken to verify the diagnosis and to monitor the pattern of resistance.
We observed in a randomised intervention trial in Bissau that mortality due to malaria could be reduced by half by adding a small monetary incentive to the staff and strict follow-up of a standard protocol for available drugs. The Government and donors are not able to sustain such incentives. We intend to evaluate whether strict organisation of a cost recovery system and the use of part of the funds for staff incentives would improve performance of the staff and contribute to reduction of hospital and post-discharge mortality.
Our group has consistently found that the major interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality in low-income countries have sex-differential effects. These interventions include BCG vaccine, oral polio vaccination (OPV), and vitamin A supplementation (VAS). Low-birth-weight (LBW) children constitute the largest high-risk group in low-income countries. According to current policy, they receive OPV at birth. Current evidence suggests that a policy of providing BCG with OPV for girls and VAS instead of OPV for boys at birth may improve survival in LBW neonates. This will be tested in a large randomized trial. We experienced an unexpected cluster of deaths among boys in the VAS arm, which could be due to chance, but we decided to stop randomizing boys to OPV or VAS. Very recent evidence has suggested that low-birth-weight boys may benefit from BCG at birth as well. Hence, we have obtained ethical permission to continue the trial with randomization of boys to OPV or OPV plus BCG.
The study intend to evaluate whether the use of standardised malaria case management protocol plus financial incentives added to the availability of free drugs reduce the case-fatality at the paediatric ward.
This study will evaluate the efficacy of treatment with artemether-lumefantrine as compared to chloroquine in the dose of 50 mg/kg for treatment of malaria in children in Guinea-Bissau. The genetic basis of the parasites for developing resistance will be examined. Children coming to one of the Health Centres with symptoms of malaria and a positive malaria test will be included. The children will be followed weekly until day 70. In case of reappearance of parasites the child will be re-treated with the opposite study drug.
In non-randomized studies, routine childhood vaccinations have been observed to have non-targeted effects. Difteria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine provided with or after measles vaccine (MV) is associated with increased mortality in areas with herd immunity to pertussis. We will examine in a randomised study of 6000 children the effect of not administering DTP simultaneously with or after MV on overall child mortality, hospitalization rates, and the immunological responses after vaccination. We will also examine potential sex-differential effects in the outcomes and interactions with other vaccines, other health interventions and season.
Prenatal maternal micronutrient supplementation has been suggested as a means to reduce the proportion of low birth weight babies in low-income countries. The effects of prenatal multi-micronutrient supplements on birth weight and perinatal mortality were studied in a randomised controlled trial among 2100 pregnant women in Guinea-Bissau. Women up to 37 weeks pregnant were individually randomised to daily supplements until delivery of A) Iron + folic acid or multi-micronutrients in B) One or C) Two recommended dietary allowances. Secondary outcomes were infant growth and maternal haemoglobin eight weeks after delivery.
The general objectives of the proposed research work are: A1) to reduce childhood mortality in developing countries through better control of measles infection by finding the best immunization strategy, and A2) to investigate the hypothesis that standard titre measles immunization is associated with non targeted beneficial effects on childhood morbidity and mortality in developing countries. The measurable, specific objectives of the present proposal are: B1) to examine whether a two-dose strategy for measles immunization at 6 and 9 months of age can reduce measles incidence by 50% through better coverage or improved seroconversion, and B2) to examine whether a two-dose strategy for measles immunization at 6 and 9 months of age can reduce childhood mortality by 20% through better coverage, better protection against measles or non targeted beneficial effects, and B3) to determine the magnitude and duration of non-measles related changes in morbidity patterns after standard titre measles immunization, in particular to test whether measles immunization is associated with a 15% reduction in the risk of diarrhoea, and B4) to determine non-measles related immunological changes among recipients of measles vaccine in order to establish possible pathways for the non targeted effects of standard titre measles immunization.
We previously compared the effect on mortality of the half dose and the full dose currently recommended by WHO. Unexpectedly, the low dose was clearly better for girls, but not for boys. The girls' response might have depended on the last vaccine received before the OPV and VAS campaign. We believe that these findings call for confirmation. In connection with a new campaign, we will examine whether half the dose or the full dose has a more beneficial effect on mortality and morbidity in girls, and furthermore address the potential effect modification by the last vaccine received before the supplementation.