Severe Malaria Theme

The Severe Malaria research theme aims to curate, to a standardised format, the majority of clinical studies conducted in severe malaria over the past 40 years. We will share this pooled, pseudo-anonymised data with the severe malaria community, to improve the prognosis and diagnosis of severe malaria, as well trial design and epidemiology data. Our main focus for these aims is children in Africa. 

The World Health Organisation estimates that over 500,000 African children die from severe malaria. This number is likely to increase as resistance to one of the best currently available treatments for malaria, artemisinin, spreads across the continent. 

There are currently no WHO recommended adjuvant therapies for severe malaria, and in areas of high malaria transmission, accurate diagnosis of severe malaria is difficult, with substantial overdiagnosis – many children in fact have bacterial sepsis, which needs a different treatment focus. 

We aim to improve both the diagnosis and treatment of severe malaria, aiming to provide clear evidence to health policy bodies, (such as the WHO) to base recommendations on. This will help reduce the death toll from malaria as well as diseases such as bacterial sepsis that are currently being misdiagnosed as malaria. 

The Severe Malaria research theme falls under the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), and is governed by the IDDO data re-use framework. The leadership and strategic direction of WWARN is overseen by a steering committee, co-chaired by IDDO Director Professor Philippe Guerin. The rest of the committee includes a rotating cohort of malaria experts. 

The Severe Malaria research theme is led by Dr Elizabeth George, with Professor Daniel Ansong as the theme co-lead. In seeking leadership, preference has been given to researchers from  lower- or middle-income country with equitable gender representation taken into account as well. 

The WWARN Programme and Project Managers support all malaria-related projects, ensuring operational continuity and project management efficiency. 

The initial severe malaria data platform is predominantly supported by a Wellcome grant, with additional project co-funding provided by Malaria Consortium and the WHO.