Pvstatem
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Stakeholders
European Union (Funder)
Pasteur Institute (Lead Institution)
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (Co-lead Institution)
A SEROLOGICAL TOOL HAS PROVEN TO DETECT WHO had a RECENT MALARIA INFECTION with gREAT ACCURACY. WE INTEND TO HELP TRACKING MALARIA TRANSMISSION CAUSED BY PLasmodium Vivax in Communities of Madagascar and Ethiopia USING THIS AND OTHER SEROLOGICAL TOOLS.
Background
Elimination of malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax is complicated because it is very difficult to identify individuals who are silent carriers of undetectable liver-stage parasites, called hypnozoites. To tackle this problem, a recent study published in Nature Medicine developed a panel of antibodies whose data could classify individuals with recent P. vivax infections who have a high likelihood of harboring hypnozoites. This panel showed promise to be deployed to the field by helping the identification of individuals who should be targeted to receive anti-hypnozoite therapy.
PvSTATEM is the acronym of a 5-year project awarded funding from the European Union under the umbrella of Horizon Europe. The overall goal of the project is to demonstrate the efficacy of using the above antibody panel to test and treat hypnozoite-carrier individuals in communities of Ethiopia and Madagascar. Dr. Nuno Sepúlveda and Prof. Przemyslaw Biecek were invited as a part of the Hop-On WIDERA call to join this project. The funding decision is expected in April 2023.
Expected Impact
The quality control and analytic pipelines for processing laboratory data will be automated and embedded within prototype mobile health applications.
Single biomarker models for serological surveillance will be updated to account for multiplex serological data generated by the PvSeroTAT test using machine learning algorithms.
Measured seroprevalence will be benchmarked against standard metrics of malaria transmission based on parasite prevalence and clinical incidence.
Demonstrate that serology can be used as an endpoint in clinical trials for malaria control interventions and that it has superior statistical power to parasite prevalence.