The overall goal of this proposal is the establishment the Centro Latino Americano de investigacion en Malaria - CLAIM as a non-Amazonian malaria research center that would generate knowledge and provide technical and scientific support to governments of the partner countries as well as to organizations and health care institutions to further contribute to malaria elimination programs in the regions.
CL AIM would initially bring together field sites from Colombia, Peru, Panama and Guatemala, and has plans to further include sites from Ecuador and Honduras and possibly other endemic countries of the Latin American (LA) and the Caribbean such as Haiti.
CL AIM will be composed of multiple public and private research centers from the original partner countries, including centers and organizations depending from or associated to the Ministries of Health (MOH) from all participant countries.
CL AIM has also involved consultants/collaborators from the Andean Health Organism and/or the US Centers for Disease Control for this ICEMR program. In addition, to the scientists from the partner countries, CLAIM will have the participation of prominent and experienced scientists from other endemic countries such as Ecuador and Brazil, as well as from United State (USA) and Europe. The ICEMR research activities have been divided into three closely inter-related projects as follows: Project 1 on Epidemiology will determine the ecological and epidemiological features in non-Amazonian regions; Project 2 on malaria transmission will address major gaps in our understanding of the ecology, behavior, vector potential, and control of Anopheles malaria vectors to guide the development and implementation of more effective integrated Vector Management (IVM) strategies, and Project 3 on malaria pathogenesis, that it will determine the clinical outcome of malaria infections and its correlation with the immunological status in communities living under different intensifies of malaria transmission in the study region.
CL AIM would involve its epidemiology team to closely work with the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) of all partner countries, to locate and track the hot spots and to assess the changing epidemiological conditions, identifying the malaria patterns and establishing linkages with environmental and anthropogenic factors or other determinants of malaria transmission. The study team will provide technical assistance for helping NMCPs improve surveillance operations, including quality control and assurance of data with respect to diagnostics. This ICEMR proposal includes training activities for selected junior scientists and groups of researchers/technicians. Special projects will be initiated by Year 3 of the program and will profit to redirect the program and/or involve other countries. A Data Management (DM) Core will coordinate all research protocol, DM, data analyses and publications. All CLAIM activities will be coordinated by Core A under responsibility of Caucaseco SRC.
CL AIM will combine the multidisciplinary and integrated approach to enhance the research underpinnings for effective malaria elimination and possibly eradication. Data and findings generated by this Center are expected to provide input critical to inform future research design and evaluation of new interventions and control strategies.

Public Health Relevance

This is a comprehensive project designed to establish an international Center of Excellence for Malaria Research in Latin America (CLAIM) composed of multiple public and private research centers from the endemic countries, the USA and Europe working jointly to find alternatives for malaria control. Results will facilitate malaria elimination in low malaria endemic settings.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Research Program--Cooperative Agreements (U19)
Project #
5U19AI089702-07
Application #
9099693
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZAI1)
Program Officer
Rao, Malla R
Project Start
2010-07-01
Project End
2017-06-30
Budget Start
2016-07-01
Budget End
2017-06-30
Support Year
7
Fiscal Year
2016
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Caucaseco Scientific Research Center
Department
Type
DUNS #
881960108
City
Cali
State
Country
Colombia
Zip Code
760042
Lopez-Perez, Mary; Larsen, Mads Delbo; Bayarri-Olmos, Rafael et al. (2018) IgG Responses to the Plasmodium falciparum Antigen VAR2CSA in Colombia Are Restricted to Pregnancy and Are Not Induced by Exposure to Plasmodium vivax. Infect Immun 86:
Rojas-Peña, Mónica L; Duan, Meixue; Arafat, Dalia et al. (2018) Individualized Transcriptional Resolution of Complicated Malaria in a Colombian Study. J Pers Med 8:
Arévalo-Herrera, Myriam; Rengifo, Lina; Lopez-Perez, Mary et al. (2017) Complicated malaria in children and adults from three settings of the Colombian Pacific Coast: A prospective study. PLoS One 12:e0185435
Castillo, Andreína I; Andreína Pacheco, M; Escalante, Ananias A (2017) Evolution of the merozoite surface protein 7 (msp7) family in Plasmodium vivax and P. falciparum: A comparative approach. Infect Genet Evol 50:7-19
Ding, Xavier C; Ade, Maria Paz; Baird, J Kevin et al. (2017) Defining the next generation of Plasmodium vivax diagnostic tests for control and elimination: Target product profiles. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 11:e0005516
Céspedes, Nora; Li Wai Suen, Connie S N; Koepfli, Cristian et al. (2017) Natural immune response to Plasmodium vivax alpha-helical coiled coil protein motifs and its association with the risk of P. vivax malaria. PLoS One 12:e0179863
Sáenz, Fabián E; Arévalo-Cortés, Andrea; Valenzuela, Gabriela et al. (2017) Malaria epidemiology in low-endemicity areas of the northern coast of Ecuador: high prevalence of asymptomatic infections. Malar J 16:300
Chaparro, Pablo E; Molina, Karen; Alzate, Alberto et al. (2017) Urban malaria transmission in a non-endemic area in the Andean region of Colombia. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 112:797-804
Recht, Judith; Siqueira, André M; Monteiro, Wuelton M et al. (2017) Malaria in Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela: current challenges in malaria control and elimination. Malar J 16:273
Kim, Adam; Popovici, Jean; Vantaux, Amélie et al. (2017) Characterization of P. vivax blood stage transcriptomes from field isolates reveals similarities among infections and complex gene isoforms. Sci Rep 7:7761

Showing the most recent 10 out of 85 publications