Dr Menno Smit

Biography

Dr. Menno Smit, MD, MPH, PhD, FRCPCH is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Pediatrics & Child Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), based in Kisumu, Kenya. He holds honorary clinical, teaching and research appointments at: (1) Obama Children’s Hospital, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching & Referral Hospital (JOOTRH), (2) Center for Global Health Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI-CGHR), and (3) Emma Children’s Hospital, Department of Pediatric Infectious Disease, Amsterdam University Medical Center (Amsterdam UMC). He trained in medicine, tropical medicine and pediatrics in The Netherlands, including internships in Panama, Australia, Benin, and Kenya. For his MSc in Public Health at LSHTM and PhD in Tropical Medicine at LSTM, he was based in Kenya for 3.5 years at the Kenya Medical Research Institute & U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KEMRI/CDC) Research and Public Health Collaboration. His research has focused on identifying safe and practical population-level drug interventions in malaria endemic areas, including high-dose ivermectin as a first-in-class mosquitocidal drug. He has published in The Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and The Lancet Infectious Diseases. He was awarded “Best Oral Presentation” at the LSTM PhD student conference, defended his PhD thesis “without corrections”, and received the Robert Sauerwein Medal for making “Major contributions to our understanding of tropical infectious diseases”. Currently as a Pediatrician and Senior Lecturer, he combines clinical work, teaching and research in pediatrics to improve global child health.

Research interests

• Pediatrics & Child Health
• Pediatric Infectious Disease & Immunology
• Clinical Pharmacology

Selected research publications

Mass drug administration of ivermectin and dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine against malaria in settings with high coverage of standard control interventions: a cluster-randomised controlled trial in The Gambia – Journal: The Lancet Infectious Diseases – Published: 23rd March 2022

A systematic review and an individual patient data meta-analysis of ivermectin use in children weighing less than fifteen kilograms: Is it time to reconsider the current contraindication? – Journal: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases – Published: 17th March 2021

Ivermectin as a novel complementary malaria control tool to reduce incidence and prevalence: a modelling study – Journal: The Lancet Infectious Diseases – Published: 1st April 2020

Safety and mosquitocidal efficacy of high-dose ivermectin when co-administered with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine in Kenyan adults with uncomplicated malaria (IVERMAL): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial – Journal: The Lancet Infectious Diseases – Published: 1st June 2018

Effect of daily antenatal iron supplementation on plasmodium infection in Kenyan women: A randomized clinical trial – Journal: JAMA – Published: 8th September 2015

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