4th Annual meeting 4th Annual meeting of the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium, 1-3 June 2011, Maputo
The MiP Consortium recently held their fourth annual meeting at the Cardoso Hotel, Maputo, Mozambique between 1-3 June 2011 co-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and EDCTP. The three day meeting was hosted by Dr. Eusebio Macete, Director of the Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça (CISM) (www.manhica.org) and was officially opened by the Mozambican Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Nazira Vali, who stressed the continuing importance of tackling malaria in pregnancy.
The meeting was attended by 66 participants from all over the world including the senior investigators from 14 major research projects and stakeholders from the World Health Organization, the President's Malaria Initiative, and other international health and non-governmental agencies. EDCTP was represented by Dr Pascoal Mocumbi, High Representative of EDCTP and President of the Manhiça Foundation, and former Prime Minister of Mozambique.
The meeting focused on the progress of the MiP Consortium’s multicentre clinical trials in Africa, Asia and Latin America to find new drugs and strategies for the prevention and treatment of malaria in pregnancy and other crucial cross cutting activities, such as immunology, drug safety, public health impact and capacity development. Preliminary results and data from other relevant studies were also shared and plans developed for research dissemination mechanisms for sharing the outcomes of the Consortium’s research agenda with policy makers and implementers at the global, regional and national level.
A joint Executive and Investigators’ Committee meeting was held following the members’ meeting to discuss administrative and governance issues pertaining to the Consortium, where it was agreed that the next annual meeting would be held in 2013 to coincide with the availability of the results from the various multicentre trials and cross cutting analyses, thereby maximising best use of resources. In addition, the Coordinators of the Africa-based trials used the opportunity to convene project-specific side meetings for site PIs.
The meeting concluded with a field trip to the CISM research centre in Manhiça. CISM is one of five study sites involved in a multicentre trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of alternative antimalarials to sulpahdoxine-pyrimethamine for the intermittent prevention of malaria in pregnancy, in the context of insecticide treated nets in different malaria endemic settings with moderate to high SP resistance in Africa. It is also involved in an innovative MiP Consortium multicentre study to develop and field test active surveillance tools and procedures for artemisinin combination therapy exposure identification and assessment during early pregnancy.