Malaria Research Services

QA Data provides specialist services focused on anti-malarial research, harnessing its African base and experience to provide expertise to combat this killer disease. The QA Data team has conducted numerous Phase 1, 2 and 3 malaria clinical trials for biotechnology companies and non-profit organizations. The CRO also partners with academia, offering part or complete service packages.

Background
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified malaria as one of the greatest threats to global health and well being. Around half the world’s population, some 3.3 billion people, live in malarial regions and more than one billion in high risk regions, principally in South East Asia, equatorial America and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Every year it is estimated that between 300 and 500 million people contract this parasitic disease. Malarial death rates have doubled over the past 30 years to between 1.1 and 2.7m people a year. The main difficulties in establishing more exact death figures are the number of malarial cases who die at home without ever receiving medical attention, combined with incomplete national schemes of civil registration in SSA.

The African region has a notoriously weak system of reporting infectious diseases, epidemiological evidence from carefully conducted prospective ‘active’ case-detection studies of malaria morbidity, disability, mortality in populations living under different transmission intensity risks. Nevertheless, SSA is the hardest hit with WHO estimating between 152 and 287 million malaria clinical cases occurring each year with 90 per cent of malarial deaths concentrated in 18 African countries.

Between 35 and 45 per cent of deaths are from the severe forms of malaria, with children under five and pregnant women most likely to die. The majority of deaths from severe malaria in childhood are caused by delay in administering effective anti-malarial treatment, condemning young victims to relentless deterioration with death ensuing in a matter of hours or days. The mortality of untreated severe malaria is thought to approach 100 per cent. If treated, the death rate falls to under 15 per cent but increases in the presence of renal failure and respiratory distress. Any successful attempt to reduce mortality from malaria will have to explore novel possibilities for minimizing such delays.

Capabilities
QA Data has more than ten years experience in studying the disease. It has assisted in conducting and documenting numerous Malaria Phase 1, 2, 3 clinical trials for Biotechnology companies and non-profit organizations.

The CRO and its team are logistically well-placed to operate in the main risk regions of SSA and can provide expert support to malarial studies and trials. QA Data support for anti-malarial research includes clinical research project management, validated, 21 CFR part 11 compliant electronic data capture, paper-based data collection and entry to FDA standards, disease and medication coding and analysis, as well as Medical writing.

All these capabilities are available as part or complete service packages to commercial companies, non-profit organizations or academia.

Recent projects include:

• Valuable participation on a Phase 3 African Malaria Trial among 180 children of a sub-lingual treatment for p. falciparum malaria in which preliminary results indicate effectiveness more than double that of quinine. Subjects were screened in Rwanda, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
• Successful collaboration with a leading not-for-profit anti-malarial organization that has recently announced breakthrough treatments for different forms of the disease.

Contact
To learn more about QA Data’s malaria research services, please contact QA Data directly.