Malaria exposure, emergency care and severe disease phenotypes in African children

Grantholders

  • Prof Robert Snow

    University of Oxford

Project summary

Malaria continues to pose a huge burden on African communities and hospitals. Despite scaled mosquito vector control coverage, many children in central Africa continue to be infected with the malaria parasite every year. Despite improved access to effective malaria medicines and diagnostics, malaria remains the leading cause of admission to paediatric wards at many hospitals, with children often admitted with life-threatening illness.

We will work in 16 hospitals in Kenya and Uganda and 20 hospitals in other countries in the region to define the relationship between how often a child is infected with the malaria parasite and the chances of being hospitalised with different forms of severe malaria, and how children with severe malaria reach hospital.

These surveillance data might lead to a best practice model for future surveillance of severe disease, allowing countries to measure the impact of malaria control.