Prospects for residual malaria elimination in rural Brazilian Amazon: targeting Plasmodium vivax reservoir hosts

• Grant number: 13/02764-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: August 01, 2013 - July 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Parasitology - Protozoology of Parasites
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Urbano Ferreira
• Grantee: Marcelo Urbano Ferreira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Marcia Caldas de Castro

Abstract

Brazil currently contributes 56% of the malaria cases recorded across the Americas and the Caribbean (260,000 new cases reported in 2012, 85% of them due to Plasmodium vivax). This project aims to implement and evaluate a surveillance strategy to detect reservoir hosts of malaria parasites in an area with very low transmission levels (municipality of Acrelândia, northwestern Brazil) by monitoring potential transmission foci around newly diagnosed, slide-confirmed clinical malaria cases. Specific aims are: (a) to classify all slide-confirmed malaria episodes (index cases) diagnosed by routine surveillance as either indigenous, relapsing, imported or introduced; (b) to assess the efficacy of screening, by microscopic and molecular diagnostic methods, subjects sharing the household with the index cases and their neighbors to detect additional malaria parasite carriers (either symptomatic or not) that could contribute to establishing new transmission foci; and (c) to determine the epidemiologic relationships among index cases and additional infections diagnosed in the neighborhood by analyzing the genetic relatedness of parasites from these cases. The long-term goal of this study is to provide scientific evidence that can be translated into more effective public health interventions for residual malaria elimination in low-endemicity areas of Brazil. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

FONTOURA, PABLO S.; FINCO, BRUNA F.; LIMA, NATHALIA F.; DE CARVALHO, JR., JAQUES F.; VINETZ, JOSEPH M.; CASTRO, MARCIA C.; FERREIRA, MARCELO U.. Reactive Case Detection for Plasmodium vivax Malaria Elimination in Rural Amazonia. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, v. 10, n. 12, DEC 2016. (13/02764-8, 13/17259-7, 13/26928-0)