TIBA- Sudan Rapid Impact project titled “Preparation for Malaria elimination from Khartoum State: Improvement of the health system and Detection of persistent transmission foci of plasmodium species”. progressed well and completed last month as planned. During this project we successfully linked with Khartoum Ministry of Health and helped them to prepare for malaria elimination as planned.
We were able to map 193 malaria diagnostic center and audited the facilities both the infrastructure and personnel in these centers. We also audited malaria data reports during the period 2015 to 2018.
updated malaria prevalence data by conducting active surveys. A total of 2100 blood samples were collected from randomly enrolled participants. BF and blood samples were collected for DNA extraction and EL:ISA to measure the antibody response to the four plasmodium species (P. Falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae and P. ovale as indictor of exposure to malaria.
Malaria endemic foccI were identified and the circulating malaria species were typed.
Samples were collected from malaria cases and typed using PCR and antibody responses were measured using ELISA. Geomaps were developed and being updated.
The Rapid Impact project has been successfully completed. The project produced valuable data for the ministry of health which has been strongly involved in our activities and the ministry is benefiting from the training opportunities that we provided for three of their junior staff to do their Ph.D. training with us.
TIBA- Sudan is now well recognized in the malaria research community in Sudan.
During the same period our TBIA-Sudan Ph.D. Student Mrs.. Azza Elshafie is continuing her Ph.D. project titled “Mapping of Plasmodium falciparum HRP2&3 mutations and measuring their impact on diagnostic accuracy, antigen expression, virulence and anti HRP antibody production in individuals living in areas with different malaria transmission settings”. She has collected the samples for her study and started the analysis of the samples as planned. Her research is expected to generate valuable data on the prevalence of HRP2 mutations and its impact on the severity of the diseases and the immune response of the patient. Her project is expected to contribute to change in policy on the use RDT for diagnosis of malaria in Sudan.
This study received the attention from the World Health Organization (WHO) who are requesting our collaboration to expand the study to other states and share the results of our study with them and with the Federal ministry of Health.
Dr. Mohamed Abdelrahim, Our fellow of TIBA-Sudan out of Africa project titled “Analysis of whole genome sequences of Sudanese Leishmania donovani isolates from different clinical forms” completed his plans to participate in his training Edinburgh university. He already participated in Minion sequencing workshop organized by TIBA in Ghana last year.
Part of the out of Africa training we are planning to establish our bioinformatic unit in the institute and to acquire an Illumina Mini Sequencer for whole genome sequencing of malaria and emerging virus pathogens to be studied in TIBA Making a Difference leads by Professor Francisca Mutapi. The sequencer will also be used for our TIBA- Uganda Making a difference project on Trypanosomiasis.
Our TIBA Sudan partnership with our colleagues from Uganda, and Nigeria and Edinburgh university, Making a Difference project titled “ Contribution of maternal transmission and silent carriers in the epidemiology and persistence of African Trypanosomiasis in human and animal populations” has been launched on 18 March 2019. A meeting was held last week in Kampala where we met with our colleagues from Uganda, Nigeria and Edinburgh. The meeting was successful, and we finalized our work plan and ready to start the field work.
In this project, we were able to recruit scientists from South Sudan to be involved in patients follow up in South Sudan where human African trypanosomes is prevalent. This is one of the success counted for TIBA to be able to include South Sudan to the activities under the umbrella of TIBA Uganda.
We are waiting for the ethical approval of our Making a Difference project on “Developing and evaluating a comprehensive multiplex peptide array serological diagnostic for use in Africa” lead by Professor Mutapi. The project is ready to be launched.
 |
 |
 |