There are about 7 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Namibia. 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 study aims to determine the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, acceptability, and feasibility of targeted delivery of a package of malaria interventions for improving effective coverage and reducing Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission among malaria high-risk populations in Northern Namibia. Previous research identified cattle herders and agricultural workers as populations at higher risk of infection. The investigators hypothesize that targeted delivery of interventions will lead improve coverage in these groups and lead to a reduction in P. falciparum transmission.
Title: Evaluation of host biomarker-based point-of-care tests for targeted screening for active TB (Screen TB) Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) places severe pressure on health care services of the developing world. Despite the introduction of the highly sensitive and specific GeneXpert MTB/RIF (GeneXpert) test [1] with a potential turn-around time of two hours, many people in high TB prevalence areas still do not have access to efficient TB diagnostic services due to logistical constraints in these settings. A cost effective, rapid, point-of-care screening test with high sensitivity would identify people with a high likelihood for active TB and would prioritize them for testing with more expensive, technically or logistically demanding assays including GeneXpert or liquid culture, facilitating cost-effective diagnostic work-up in resource-limited settings. A serum cytokine signature for active TB disease, discovered in the AE-TBC project, with a sensitivity of 89% (CI 78 - 95%) and specificity of 76% (CI 68 - 83%), will be optimised and utilized in a point-of-care format (TransDot) to rapidly test for TB disease in symptomatic people. Hypothesis: The TransDot test will achieve a sensitivity of > 90% for TB disease, in a training set of people suspected of having TB disease, and be validated (achieve similarly high sensitivity) subsequently in a prospective test set of people suspected of having TB disease, when compared to a composite gold standard of sputum culture, smear, GeneXpert, chest X-ray, TB symptoms and TB treatment response. Objectives: The overall objective of the study is to incorporate a six-marker serum signature into a multiplex UCP-LFA format, referred to as TransDot, for finger-prick blood testing. The end point of the study is the accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) of the UCP-LFA TransDot test on finger-prick blood for active TB and will be prospectively compared against gold standard composite diagnostic criteria (GeneXpert, MGIT culture, TB sputum smear, CXR, TB symptom screen and response to TB treatment). Primary: The primary outcome of interest will be accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the TransDot finger-prick test when compared with the composite gold standard tests.
STUDY OBJECTIVE To confirm the incidence of in-hospital postoperative complications in adult surgical patients in Africa. STUDY DESIGN Seven day, African national multi-centre prospective observational cohort study of adult (≥18 years) patients undergoing surgery. Patients will be followed up for a maximum of 30 days. We will follow the original International Surgical Outcomes Study (ISOS) study design. The primary outcome is in-hospital postoperative complications in adult surgical patients in Africa. Secondary outcomes include in-hospital mortality and the relationship between postoperative complications and postoperative mortality. The intention is to present a representative sample of surgical outcomes across all African countries. This study will run between February and March 2016.
This is a cluster randomised controlled trial with factorial study design comparing the impact of reactive community-based malaria interventions: 1) presumptive treatment (or rfMDA, reactive focal mass drug administration) versus reactive case detection (RACD), and 2) reactive IRS (indoor residual spraying) versus control on the incidence of malaria in Namibia.