There are about 292 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Zambia. 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.
Zambia recently introduced routine infant immunization against rotavirus - the most important cause of severe gastroenteritis and diarrhoea mortality in children. Although vaccines like Rotarix are a cost effective tool against infectious diseases, live oral vaccines can be less immunogenic and efficacious in developing world settings as compared with industrialized countries. Reasons behind this phenomenon are not well understood, but may relate to continued maternal antigen exposure and high level maternal immunity that is passed to the foetus/newborn transplacentally and/or through breast milk. Therefore, three arising hypotheses include: (i) high-level rotavirus-specific maternal immunity (in the form of anti-rotavirus breast-milk immunoglobulin A (IgA) and transplacental serum IgG) is a major contributor to failed seroconversion following infant vaccination. (ii) Malnutrition negatively impacts infant immunity and increases the risk of post-vaccination rotavirus gastroenteritis. (iii) Introduction of rotavirus vaccine will alter the molecular epidemiology of circulating rotavirus strains detected in vaccinated children presenting with severe diarrhea. To address these hypotheses, the proposed study will recruit a prospective cohort of 420 mother-infant pairs. These will be enrolled at the time of vaccination and followed for up to four years. Baseline immunological status will be ascertained and seroconversion rates determined a month after full immunization. Incident rotavirus gastroenteritis will be monitored in the vaccinated infants whenever episodes of diarrhoea occur; through this surveillance, the sero-strains of rotaviruses causing disease will be tracked over the four year period. Contributions of HIV infection both in mothers and infants, vitamin A and zinc deficiency, weight for age Z-scores as well as mid upper arm circumference will also be assessed. Knowledge gained from this study will inform future interventional trials on strategies to improve rotavirus vaccine effectiveness in the developing world.
Addressing micronutrient deficiencies in Zambia is recognized as a national priority by the government due to its major contribution to morbidity and mortality among children, especially infants in their formative years. One of the most successful, cost-effective, and recommended strategy to address micronutrient malnutrition is 'in-home fortification' with micronutrient powders (Sprinkles being the most widely recognized) along with nutrition education. While this intervention has proven to be safe, effective, and efficacious in numerous other countries, a specific national protocol must be developed to maximize its effect on reducing anaemia in Zambian children. The proposed research aims to inform such protocol.
The study will measure the incidence of moderate and severe adverse events (AEs) associated with PrePex procedures among 500 men, including both procedural and post-procedure events, and all device-related incidents such as dislodgment. To assure complete ascertainment of AEs, study-specific forms will be used to collect standardized data from the circumcision visit and all follow-up visits. Follow-up will be more intensive for the first 50 cases, and will transition to follow-up at two visits (7 and 42 days) for the remaining 450 cases.
The novel urine LAM point-of-care strip test offers potential clinical utility to improve TB diagnosis in HIV co-infected patients. Urine LAM strip test performance improves with increasing illness severity and more advanced immunosuppression, thus offering the greatest potential utility in hospitalised HIV-infected patients with advanced immunosuppression (CD4 cell count less than 200). However, in the context of high rates of empiric treatment and the availability of other novel TB diagnostics, the clinical impact of the urine LAM strip test is unknown. This study will investigate the impact of the urine LAM strip test. The study hypothesis is that the urine LAM strip test, when combined with standard TB diagnostics (smear microscopy and culture) will significantly improve TB treatment-related outcomes (TB-related mortality, morbidity and length of hospital stay) in HIV-infected hospitalized patients when compared to standard TB diagnostics alone.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the protective efficacy of two doses of GSK Biologicals' candidate TB vaccine against pulmonary TB, as compared to placebo. The efficacy will be evaluated in adults living in TB endemic countries and aged 18 - 50 years because pulmonary TB occurs frequently in these countries and age range. In addition, the safety and immunogenicity of the candidate tuberculosis vaccine will be evaluated in a subset of volunteers.
The purpose of this cluster-randomized trial is to examine whether daily consumption of β-carotene biofortified maize flour can reduce the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency and improve the vitamin A status and among 4-8 year old children in rural Zambia.
This study proposes to balance supply and demand of male circumcision through a systematic scale-up of coordinated biomedical surgical and behavioral counseling services. The study will compare the combined biobehavioral sexual risk reduction intervention to the standard of care, which focuses exclusively on the provision of circumcision services alone, with the goal of optimizing both local and national HIV prevention efforts.
The objective of this study is to develop and test a simple community-based diagnostic algorithm for omphalitis in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, there has been no validated community-based algorithms developed and tested in the sub-Saharan context where the manifestations of omphalitis presentation may vary and diagnosis could be potentially more challenging in infants with darker skin color. Given the current attention to cord care at the global and national policy level, validated community-based algorithms will be needed to allow primary health workers to identify cord infections and reduce associated morbidity. After obtaining guardian informed consent, newborns aged 1-10 days presenting to the health facility for routine or sick visits will undergo two independent, parallel evaluations; first, by a community level worker and second, by a Zambian medical doctor (gold standard). A third independent assessment of a photo of the cord will be performed remotely by a board-certified pediatrician. Using the on-site clinician as the gold standard, the community-based algorithm and the photo assessment will be tested for concordance and the sensitivity and specificity of the algorithm will be generated. Likewise, the remote pictorial assessment will be compared to the gold standard to determine reliability of diagnosis from photographs alone.
This study is a randomized control trial assessing the impact of a simple evidence-based protocol for the treatment severe sepsis with hypotension in Zambia. This is a follow-up study to the Simplified Severe Sepsis Protocol (SSSP) study. The intervention protocol consists of a scheduled fluid regimen, early blood culture and antibiotics, and dopamine and blood transfusion when necessary. It is hypothesized that the protocol will significantly decrease in-hospital mortality in patients with severe sepsis and hypotension.
The overall hypothesis is that plastic bags used in combination with WHO thermoregulation care will reduce the incidence of hypothermia in preterm/low birth weight and full term infants when compared to routine WHO thermoregulation care alone. Part V is comparing standard WHO thermoregulation practices plus use of a plastic torso wrap to no plastic torso wrap in full term infants from resuscitation to one hour after birth.