The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and its ARCTEC team, IVCC and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) are launching a brand new free online course on the control of vector borne diseases such as malaria, dengue and Zika virus, to help fight these diseases, which remain as prevalent and dangerous as ever during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Vector borne diseases account for 17% of all infectious diseases. In recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the suspension of many national vector control programmes in disease-endemic countries, despite a plea from the World Health Organization (WHO) to government officials discouraging such action.

For example, a recent study has predicted 81,000 additional deaths in Nigeria due to the disruption to malaria control programs caused by COVID-19, further highlighting a critical need for education and training at a community level in coordinating effective vector control practices.

Progress on the control of all vector borne diseases is at great risk and now, more than ever, accurate information and education is needed to ensure vector control is not disrupted.

Now, the LSHTM and its ARCTEC team, in partnership with the IVCC and LSTM, has designed a massive open online course (MOOC) titled ‘The Global Challenge of Vector Borne Diseases and How to Control Them’.

This innovative and exciting six-week free online course will allow participants to explore the wide range of vectors and the diseases they transmit and learn about traditional and modern vector control. The course will cover state of the art vector control and importantly, participants will also learn about the suitability of vector control practices in the world today.

Using videos, presentations, articles and discussions, participants will hear from a wide range of world-leading experts from around the world, and across disciplines including epidemiology, entomology, vector biology, social science and health systems.

The course is specifically designed for anyone with an interest in vector borne diseases and public health. We particularly encourage those working in global and public health to enroll; including government stakeholders, health workers, those working on vector control programmes, vector researchers and industry employees.

 

“We are thrilled to launch this exciting new course on controlling vector borne diseases in partnership with IVCC and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt national vector control programs, it is critically important that education and training in coordinating effective vector control practices happens at a community level and this free course will help to achieve this.”

Professor James Logan, LSHTM, lead educator for this course.

 

 “IVCC is delighted to have supported the development of this MOOC.  Vector control has proven to be a critical intervention in the fight against malaria.  This MOOC will help anyone with an interest in vector control learn not just the history of vector control but also the advances being made by organisations like IVCC to bring to market novel vector control interventions to address the growing threat of insecticide resistance.”

Nick Hamon, CEO, IVCC

 

“LSTM is delighted to have partnered with IVCC and LSHTM to put together this course. Online learning has proved itself to be extremely important during the current situation, especially for those that are unable to attend courses in person, so the MOOC opens the doors and gives access to those who wouldn’t normally have it. Vector control has been critical to the reduction of malaria cases in recent decades and increasing the capacity of vector control now, particularly given the backdrop of programmes being interrupted by COVID and the issue of insecticide resistance, has never been more vital.”

Dr Michael Coleman, LSTM

The MOOC, which will officially launch on Monday 21^st September, is open for free enrollment on the FutureLearn site via this link.

LITE (Liverpool Insect Testing Establishment) has launched a new website. LITE was established by Liverpool School of Tropical Medical (LSTM) and funded and supported by IVCC. LITE is a facility that tests new insecticides or repellent based products against a wide range of mosquito populations for commercial partners. Novel insecticides are being sought to help manage insecticide resistance and to counteract the spread of infection by insecticide resistant vectors. LITE maintains a range of insecticide susceptible and resistant colonies of mosquitoes and offers several testing methodologies for insecticide efficacy testing. MHRA accepted LITE, as a provisional member to the GLPMA programme from 23 March 2020, with testing performed to standard operating procedures and quality monitored standards by fully trained and qualified staff.

Visit the website to learn more.

IVCC has developed its new ‘Ambassador Pack’ which is now available digitally or in hard copy version.  The Pack contains 14 loose leaf pages which cover the broad spectrum of IVCC’s work, including Product Development, Key Highlights and Market Access workstreams.  The pack also contains an updated version of the IVCC strategy which was completed earlier this year.

View the online version of the Ambassador Pack here.

Mosquito net distribution could help halve the number of deaths from Malaria during the coronavirus outbreak in Africa, researchers say.

There are concerns that malaria control activities – such as distributing insecticidal nets – could be severely disrupted as a result of the pandemic. Writing in Nature Medicine, Imperial’s COVID-19 Response Team estimate that malaria deaths could more than double in 2020 compared to 2019. But swift action could substantially reduce the burden of malaria and prevent joint malaria and COVID-19 epidemics simultaneously overwhelming vulnerable health systems. In the article the researchers estimate the impact of disruption of malaria prevention activities and other core health services under four different COVID-19 epidemic scenarios.

An estimated 228 million long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) were due to be delivered across Sub-Saharan Africa this year, more than ever before. They estimate that if these mosquito nets are not deployed and preventative chemotherapy and case management is reduced by half for six months, there could be 779,000 malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa over 12 months.

If prevention activities were to stop during the outbreak, the team estimates that 200,000 deaths could still be prevented over six months if treatment of malaria is maintained. The researchers recommend that routine distributions of LLINs should be prioritised alongside maintaining access to antimalarial treatment and the use of chemoprevention to prevent substantial malaria epidemics.

 “It is vitally important to get malaria prevention measures out now to reduce the pressure on health systems as COVID-19 cases increase.”

Dr Thomas Churcher, Imperial’s School of Public Health

“In the face of COVID-19 it will still be important to ensure vector control interventions continue to be deployed as much as possible in order to not only sustain the gains already made in malaria elimination but ensure we do not have a resurgence in malaria.”

Okefu Oyale Okoko, Deputy Director/Head Integrated Vector Management Branch National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) Public Health Department Federal Ministry of Health Abuja

“The efforts to maintain net campaigns across Sub-Saharan Africa are absolutely vital. We know how to prevent, track and treat malaria, but the strain Covid-19 puts on health systems risks hard fought for progress. This important modelling is a reminder that efforts to end malaria sit on a knife edge. Protecting people against Covid-19 cannot be pursued in isolation. Governments must see maintaining efforts against malaria as a core part of pandemic preparedness or risk a catastrophic domino effect.”

James Whiting, Executive Director, Malaria No More UK

Read the full article > 

For more information contact:

Stephen Johns
Imperial College London
s.johns@imperial.ac.uk

+44 (0) 20 7594 9531
+44 (0) 7792 657226

In partnership with IVCC, and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine’s Centre for Capacity Research investigated how Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) certification was achieved by the KCMUCo-PAMVERC trial site in Moshi, Tanzania.

A new paper by Sara Begg identified the enablers and barriers that influenced the development of capacity to achieve GLP certification with the lessons learnt transferable to other African trial sites to accelerate progress towards GLP and strengthen the network of test facilities able to provide high-quality data for the evaluation of vector control products.