Malaria research group
Group Leader: Dr. Zeinab S. Imam (zeinabimam@tropmedicine.org)
Group members
Azza Tag Eldin Elshafie
Samowal Haj Osman
Fatma Ali
Batoul Shawgi
Hajir Abdalla
Vision
To be leader in malaria research
Mission
-To conduct high quality research
- To generate evidence to improve malaria diagnosis, management and control
Current Projects
Tackling infections to benefit Africa (TIBA) (http://tiba-partnership.org)
TIBA is African led wide ranging multidisciplinary research program that explores and draws lessons from the ways that different African health systems tackle infectious diseases.
Sudan-TIBA Rapid Impact Project:
This project aims to contribute to the malaria elimination plan and will be implemented in Khartoum state. Identification and mapping of malaria hot transmission spots and estimation of transmission intensity are prerequisites for malaria control and elimination. Serological measures are a useful and sensitive alternative measure of transmission intensity in areas of low transmission, where parasite prevalence and entomological inoculation rate (EIR) are currently not reliable. Sensitive multi-species serology offers a way to accurately assessing true endemicity and better identify persistent foci of transmission. A start has been made on this task in peri-urban areas of Khartoum (with P.vivax detection) and we wish to reinforce and build upon this work.
Four states: Khartoum, Northern, River Nile and Red Sea states are at the stage of malaria elimination according to the last risk map of malaria. Malaria elimination requires effective and functioning health system, accurate endemicity data and utilization of accurate diagnostic tests beside effective case management and vector control.
This project fits well with global efforts to systematically monitor changing malaria epidemiology and will contribute to operational intelligence for Sudanese malaria services. A coordinated effort to improve the health system, introduce better malaria diagnosis, monitoring and surveillance is essential for sustaining recent gains in case incidence reduction and will also improve the targeting of interventions and economize resource utilization. After Khartoum State surveys, it is intended to move to Northern Sudan elimination campaigns, which in turn would strengthen pan-African control efforts.
TIBA- Sudan Student Ph.D. project:
TIBA has secured full funding for training one Ph.D. as part pf the capacity building plan. The student Mrs. Azza Elshafie has developed her research proposal which is approved and started her Ph.D thesis research. The Ph.D. research is focused on determining the prevalence of HRP2&3 mutations in four states: Khartoum, Kassala, El Gadaref and Sinnar. The research project will use bth molecular and serological tools to achieve its objectives (TIBA-Sudan) (www.tiba-partnership.org)
In vitro induction of gametogenesis in plasmodium falciparum infection:
This project is supported by local fund. It aims to determine the Induction of expression of Plasmodium falciparum gametocyte genes following invitro stimulation with antimalarial drugs and mosquito salivary gland products using real Time PCR.