The AvecNet consortium is about to embark on a large scale clinical field trial of a new vector control tool based on research conducted in the first two years of the programme. AvecNet(African Vector Control New Tools) is half way through its five year cycle of European Commission funding and held its midpoint scientific and management committee meeting in Rome, Italy, this week.
The consortium chose to proceed with a single full scale epidemiological trial. ‘This trial will compare a new long lasting combination bednet, containing two active ingredients, against a conventional pyrethroid treated bednet’, said LSTM professor and AvecNet scientific coordinator Hilary Ranson (pictured).
The clinical trial will be led by AvecNet partners Professor Lindsay of the University of Durham and Dr Sagnon N’Falé of the Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur le Paludisme (CNRFP). It will take place in Burkina Faso, in an area where pyrethroid resistance in malaria vectors is compromising the efficacy of conventional long lasting insecticide treated nets.
In addition to the clinical trial announcement the meeting also discussed quality assurance methods for the data collection and analysis for entomological field trials which have resulted in the formulation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are available to the wider malaria community, including the World Health Organization (WHO).
In addition the participants were updated through poster presentations and discussions on the progress made by AvecNet’s current six PHD candidates.
AvecNet’s participants were joined by representatives of its industry partners Bayer; Sumitomo and Syngenta. AvecNet 15 partners are: CNRFP (Burkina Faso); KEMRI (Kenya); REACH Trust (Malawi); NIMR (Tanzania); CSRS(Ivory Coast); IHI (Tanzania); Durham University (UK); Sapienza Universita di Roma (Italy); IVCC (UK); CNRS(France); University of Glasgow (UK); Swiss TPH (Switzerland); University of Crete (Greece) and LSHTM (UK). AvecNet is hosted and coordinated from LSTM in Liverpool, UK.