An interventional study of community based screening and treatment in Malaria, Antepartum, Maternal Malaria During Pregnancy - Baby Not Yet Delivered and Small for Gestational Age (Disorder), sponsored by Royal Tropical Institute. Completed at 3 sites in 3 countries. Open to female participants aged 16 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2016-10-04.
Sponsored by Royal Tropical Institute · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention
Malaria is a common disease in Africa and a major health problem. Pregnant women are also at risk of malaria. Malaria in pregnancy is life threatening to both the mother and the baby she is carrying. It can result in the destruction of the mother's blood and in babies with a lower birth weight than normal, making them less healthy in their first years of life. These risks are even higher in women having their first pregnancy.
When a woman is pregnant she should go to the Antenatal clinic (ANC) for care. Usually the ANC health staff gives the woman intermittent preventable treatment (IPTp-SP) against malaria. This drug helps protect the woman against getting malaria. Each pregnant woman should receive at least 2 doses of this drug during their pregnancy; thus, they should go the ANC at least 2 times during their pregnancy. However, many women still do not go often to the ANC for health care during their pregnancy.
This study would like to see whether community health workers (CHW) can work with pregnant women to encourage them to attend ANC more often. Also, the CHW will test a pregnant woman every month for malaria with a rapid test. If a woman has malaria, the CHW will treat her in her home instead of the woman having to go a health clinic for treatment. The woman will be treated with a different drug than the drug that is given at the ANC visits. Our hypothesis is that this will improve the care and management of malaria during pregnancy and this will improve the health of women and their newborns. To see whether this strategy improved the health of women and their newborns, we will take a small piece of the placenta at delivery to test for malaria and we will weigh the baby. We will test this strategy in multiple communities. We will compare this to pregnant women in communities where this strategy was not followed, thus where pregnant women received standard care.
Participants will be pregnant women. There are no direct benefits for participating in the study, except the outcome of our research question that is possible health benefits in the intervention group. The drugs involved are tested safe in pregnant women from second trimester on.
Community health workers (CHWs) that will be working in intervention villages will be trained on community-based case management of malaria by monthly testing of pregnant women using a rapid diagnostic test (RDT). They will also be taught the benefit of pregnant women visiting the antenatal clinics (ANC) and that women should receive intermittent preventive treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) at the ANC according to WHO guidelines.
The CHWs will try to identify all pregnant women in their villages and encourage them to visit the ANC as early as possible in their pregnancy. The CHW will check after one week if the ANC was visited. For women who do not attend the ANC, the CHW will further encourage and discuss reasons for non-attendance. Subsequently the CHW will visit the woman's house every month to test for malaria with a RDT.The CHW will give a full course of AL to any woman with a positive RDT. The CHW will also collect a blood slide and a blood spot on filter paper for later analysis in the laboratory. The CHWs will return to women who were treated for malaria to check uptake and compliance by using a short questionnaire and checking the empty packaging of the treatment at the end of the course.
In control communities, CHW will not be trained to do RDTs and give AL to pregnant women. The only data collection will occur during ANC visits.
All women are asked to deliver in collaborating health centres. Peripheral blood will be tested for hemoglobin, malaria infection and resistance against SP. A placenta biopsy will be collected and all babies will be weighed and examined.
1,184 studies on the registry are indexed under Malaria; 79 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 4,265 is above the median of 252 across 937 interventional studies indexed under Malaria.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.
Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Biopsy and archival tissue
A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.
Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
CHWs will identify pregnant women in the village and encourage to go to the antenatal care clinic, furthermore, once a month the community health worker will screen the pregnant women for malaria with a rapid diagnostic test and treat with artemether-lumefantrine in case of a positive test result.
Other: community based screening and treatment
All pregnant women will be identified in the study area and asked for participation to the study. No intervention will take place.
Already described in intervention arm description.
Also known as: Rapid diagnostic test, Coartem, Artemether-lumefantrine, malaria village worker, village health worker, community case management
Placental malaria
Placental malaria will be diagnosed by microscopy of placental biopsies and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on placental blood.
Time frame: After delivery
Birth weight
Babies of mothers included in the study will be weighed after delivery.
Time frame: After delivery
antenatal care clinic attendance
A field worker will identify all eligible pregnant women and will follow-up on ANC attendance through lists at the antenatal care clinic
Time frame: Throughout inclusion (+/- 6 months)
Resistance to sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP)
Samples infected with P.falciparum will be checked for resistance profile for sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine
Time frame: At delivery
Peripheral malaria infection
Each collected filter paper en microscopy slide (both in antenatal care clinics and from community health worker visits) will be checked for the presence of malaria parasites.
Time frame: Throughout inclusion (+/- 6 months)
hemoglobin
Peripheral blood sample will be tested for hemoglobin
Time frame: At delivery
This study is completed, as verified in Nov 2015. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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