There are about 34 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Papua New Guinea. 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.
Significant gains have been made in reducing the overall burden of malaria worldwide, however these have been far greater for Plasmodium falciparum than P. vivax. P. vivax remains a major obstacle to malaria control and elimination efforts, largely due to its ability to form dormant liver stages (hypnozoites) that allows it to escape detection and treatment. Importantly, they are susceptible only to 8 aminoquinolines such as primaquine. However, primaquine is associated with risk of haemolysis in individuals with a genetic condition, called glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. Additionally, the recommended 14-day prolonged treatment regimen is associated with poor treatment adherence, hence ineffective primaquine treatment. Innovative solutions to the radical cure of both the blood and liver stages of P. vivax are urgently required. The PNG National Department of Health has requested a pragmatic study of the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of implementing point-of-care G6PD testing followed by high-dose, short-course primaquine treatment regimens for patients with P. vivax malaria. This revised case management is to be combined with practicable enhancements to patient education, supervision, malariometric surveillance and pharmacovigilance. This will be a before-after longitudinal health facility-based study implemented at Napapar and Mugil health centres and Baro and Wirui clinics. A staged approach for the implementation of the revised case management strategy will be used, including patient education and counselling, community-based clinical review, with mixed methods evaluation.
The goal of this clinical trial is to test the non inferiority of linezolid compared with azithromycin as a treatment for yaws . The main questions it aims to answer are: can linezolid cure active yaws, and can linezolid cure latent yaws. Participants with serologically confirmed yaws will be randomized to receive linezolid (experimental) or azithromycin (control group) treatment and followed up to assess clinical resolution.
This trial tests the hypothesis that intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) plus dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DP) significantly reduces the risk of malaria infection (primary outcome) and adverse birth outcomes (key secondary outcome) in an endemic area of Papua New Guinea (PNG), compared to IPTp with SP alone (the current standard of care). To test this hypothesis a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, phase-III, superiority trial will individually randomize 1,172 HIV-uninfected pregnant women enrolled from 12-26 gestational weeks in equal proportions to one of two IPTp arms: 1) SP given every for weeks, or 2) SP+DP given every 4 weeks. DP placebos will be used to ensure adequate blinding is achieved in the study and follow-up will end 28 days after giving birth.
While tremendous progress towards elimination of lymphatic filariasis (LF) has been made in the 20 years since the 1997 Fiftieth World Health Assembly, it is unlikely the goal of eliminating LF as a public health problem by 2020 will be achieved. As of 2016, it was estimated that 856 million people are still living in areas with ongoing transmission of LF and require mass drug administration (MDA) [1]. Of the 52 countries that remain endemic and require MDA, 22 (42%) have not started MDA in all endemic implementation units (IUs) [1]. In addition, several countries have found that, despite completing the required number of treatment rounds, the response to the present MDA regimen has been suboptimal in some IUs, requiring additional rounds of MDA.
Triage is an important component of emergency care (EC). It aims to sort patients based on the urgency of their condition such that the highest acuity patients are prioritised for assessment and treatment. Grounded in the ethical principles of equity and justice, triage is necessary whenever there is a mismatch between demand for EC and the availability of resources. Globally, a large number of triage scales are in use. These differ in the data required to categorise patients as well as the number of tiers. Developed settings tend to utilise five-tier systems. Little is known about the prevalence of triage in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including in the Pacific region. There is also limited evidence about the utility, validity and reliability of triage scales in these contexts. While a landmark study in a paediatric Emergency Department (ED) in Malawi demonstrated that training staff in emergency skills, introducing triage and improving flow substantially reduced case fatality rates, the mortality reduction attributable to triage is unknown. A small number of triage scales have been developed for resource-limited (RL) environments. The most widely studied is the four-tier South African Triage Scale (SATS), which has demonstrated reasonable reliability and validity. In the Pacific region, SATS has provided a foundation for the three-tier Solomon Islands Triage Scale (SITS), which has recently been piloted in Honiara. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also recently released a three-tier triage scale. Neither of these instruments has been validated. Although the potential value of triage systems in resource-limited EDs is increasingly recognised, the current evidence base is limited. The impact on process indicators (eg, time to assessment) and clinical outcomes (eg, mortality) for time-critical conditions is largely unknown. This study aims to address this knowledge gap.
Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia in pregnancy is associated with maternal anaemia, low birth-weight and increased perinatal mortality. Whilst continuous prophylaxis is difficult to implement, intermittent presumptive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) has proved to be practical and effective. In PNG, pregnant women currently receive IPTp using sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, however, this therapy has the potential to be compromised by parasite resistance. The aim of the present trial is to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of azithromycin (AZI) plus piperaquine (PQ) given as IPTp to pregnant Papua New Guinea women. The study will comprise of two sub-studies: (i) A safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetic study of AZI-PQ in pregnancy. (ii) A safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy study of AZI-PQ in pregnancy.
This study specifically seeks to provide data on the safety, tolerability and pilot efficacy of short course, high dose primaquine treatment in Papua New Guinean children aged 5-10 years, in a cross-sectional study design. Community screened asymptomatic cases and/or cases of clinically diagnosed malaria admitted to the out-patient units of the health center, will be screened for Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD) and malaria illness by rapid diagnostic test and P. vivax infection confirmed by light microscopy. Following treatment with artemether-lumefantrine (Coartem), G6PD normal children will be enrolled into the study and followed for 2 months. Primaquine treatment will be allocated to study participants in a step-wise design; firstly receiving the current 14 day treatment regimen of 0.5 mg/kg total dose (n=40); secondly, a 7 day treatment regimen receiving a total dose of 1.0 mg/kg/day; then thirdly, receive 1.0 mg/kg twice daily dose (bd) for a total of 3.5 days, should the 7 day treatment prove to be safe and well tolerated. In addition to this dose-escalation study, the pharmacokinetic profiles of single doses of 0.5 mg/kg and 1.0 mg/kg will be determined using an intensive sampling protocol, in children aged 5-10 years. The pharmacokinetic profiles obtained by this sub-study will be essential for modeling the population pharmacokinetic data obtained from the dose-escalation study. As there is currently no data on the safety, tolerability and efficacy of primaquine in children, the present study will validate previous observation and contribute to the knowledge of primaquine as a treatment for liver stages of Plasmodium vivax infection.
The study aims to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the 10-valent and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines when administered in an accelerated schedule in Papua New Guinean children, who experience early dense upper respiratory tract colonisation with a broad range of pneumococcal serotypes, and to compare antibody titres following a booster dose of polysaccharide vaccine at 9 months with those children who received no booster at the same age.