Publications by authors named "Joanna Gallay"
Article Synopsis
- Passively collected malaria data is crucial for public health decisions, especially in low-transmission areas where symptoms may not prompt individuals to seek help for infections.
- This study estimated the detection rate of malaria infections, P(Detect), using data from surveys and health facilities, finding that only about 12.5% of Plasmodium falciparum and 10.1% of Plasmodium vivax infections were detected on average.
- Factors such as smaller populations, high transmission seasons, and better health-seeking behavior were linked to higher detection rates, indicating that as transmission intensity decreases, the health system's ability to detect infections improves.
Background: Understanding pattern of antimalarials use at large scale helps ensuring appropriate use of treatments and preventing the spread of resistant parasites. We estimated the proportion of individuals in community surveys with residual antimalarials in their blood and identified the factors associated with the presence of the most commonly detected drugs, lumefantrine and/or desbutyl-lumefantrine (LF/DLF) or sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP).
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2015 in three regions of Tanzania with different levels of malaria endemicity.
Background: Monitoring the impact of case management strategies at large scale is essential to evaluate the public health benefit they confer. The use of methodologies relying on objective and standardized endpoints, such as drug levels in the blood, should be encouraged. Population drug use, diagnosis and treatment appropriateness in case of fever according to patient history and anti-malarials blood concentration was evaluated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn epidemiological studies, antimalarials measurements in blood represent the best available marker of drugs exposure at population level, an important driver for the emergence of drug resistance. We have developed a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method (LC-MS/MS) for the simultaneous quantification of 7 frequently used antimalarials (amodiaquine, chloroquine, quinine, sulfadoxine, pyrimethamine, mefloquine, lumefantrine) and 2 active metabolites (N-desethyl-amodiaquine, desbutyl-lumefantrine) in 10-μl dried blood spots (DBS). This sampling approach is suitable for field studies wherein blood samples processing, transportation and storage are problematic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF