WWARN team enjoys MIM 2018

In the same week that Commonwealth leaders attended the Malaria Summit London, the WWARN team attended the 7th MIM Pan-African Conference in Dakar. The international malaria community gathered to share their latest research and industry results in support of the global drive to reduce the burden of malaria.

Dr Pedro Alonso, Director of the World Health Organisation's Global Malaria Programme, highlighted the magnitude of the challenge that still lies ahead "we are confronted with a critical point in malaria control — progress has stalled and [there are] early signs of reversal [of the gains made to date]".

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than 90% of malaria cases, the MIM Conference facilitates knowledge-sharing, collaboration and idea-generation across Africa and beyond. Special thanks go to our West Africa Regional Centre team for their efforts to organise the conference. Together with the WWARN West Africa team, we were proud to present our latest results and new tools to support malaria researchers. We co-lead a workshop entitled: 'Supporting Malaria Clinical Trials: Data Standardisation and the WWARN Toolkit of Resources' where delegates gained practical training on how to plan, design, execute and interpret malaria clinical trial results. Email: info@wwarn.org if you'd like to find out about other trainings planned for this year.

The conference sessions covered a wide range of research themes, including malaria in pregnancy, data sharing in malaria research, and malaria and malnutrition. Some highlights below:

Sunday WWARN Workshop

Supporting Malaria Clinical Trials: Data Standardisation and the WWARN Toolkit of Resources - Clifford Banda, Lesley Workman, Kasia Stepniewska and Amadou Seck

Tuesday Scientific Session 13: Health System and Resource Allocation
- Malaria and malnutrition: a thorough gap analysis - Philippe Guérin

Wednesday Symposium 33: Malaria and Pregnancy: Safety and efficacy of ACTs for the treatment of malaria in all trimesters of pregnancy and the impact of drug resistance on the effectiveness of intermittent preventive therapy with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine for the prevention of malaria in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa
- Efficacy of artemisinin-based and quinine-based treatments for uncomplicated falciparum malaria in pregnancy in Africa: a systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis - Makoto Saito
- Monitoring sulphadoxine pyrimethamine resistance – visualising the collected evidence - Georgina Humphreys

Friday Symposium 71 – Surveillance – Data sharing in malaria research, treatment and control: Case studies from sub-Saharan Africa

• Clinical trial data platforms: lessons from malaria applied to a range of infectious diseases - Philippe Guérin
• Data sharing and malaria treatment and control - Magatte Ndiaye
• Malaria treatment in the era of mult-drug resistance - Bernhards Ogutu
• Data sharing and women – Francine Ntoumi
• Data sharing and malaria research and control - Abdoulaye Djimdé

News articles during the MIM conference:

• CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/16/health/malaria-blood-transfusion-risk-intl/index.html
• El Pais: https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/16/planeta_futuro/1523869855_320730.html