Correction: Expanding the role of village malaria workers in Cambodia: Implementation and evaluation of four health education packages.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Expanding the roles of community health workers to sustain programmes during malaria elimination: a meeting report on operational research in Southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia malaria elimination is targeted by 2030. Cambodia aims to achieve this by 2025, driven in large part by the urgent need to control the spread of artemisinin-resistant falciparum malaria infections. Rapid elimination depends on sustaining early access to diagnosis and effective treatment.

Expanding the role of village malaria workers in Cambodia: Implementation and evaluation of four health education packages.

Background: Early access to correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment is essential for malaria elimination, and in Cambodia this relies on village malaria workers (VMWs). Decreasing malaria transmission leave VMWs with diminished roles. Activities related to the control of other health conditions could keep these community health workers relevant.

The feasibility of novel point-of-care diagnostics for febrile illnesses at health centres in Southeast Asia: a mixed-methods study.

Background: The decline of malaria in Southeast Asia means other causes of fever are increasingly relevant, but often undiagnosed. The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of point-of-care tests to diagnose acute febrile illnesses in primary care settings.

Methods: A mixed-methods study was conducted at nine rural health centres in western Cambodia.

Triple therapy with artemether-lumefantrine plus amodiaquine versus artemether-lumefantrine alone for artemisinin-resistant, uncomplicated falciparum malaria: an open-label, randomised, multicentre trial.

Background: Late treatment failures after artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) for falciparum malaria have increased in the Greater Mekong subregion in southeast Asia. Addition of amodiaquine to artemether-lumefantrine could provide an efficacious treatment for multidrug-resistant infections.

Methods: We conducted an open-label, randomised trial at five hospitals or health centres in three locations (western Cambodia, eastern Cambodia, and Vietnam).

Triple artemisinin-based combination therapies versus artemisinin-based combination therapies for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria: a multicentre, open-label, randomised clinical trial.

Background: Artemisinin and partner-drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum are major threats to malaria control and elimination. Triple artemisinin-based combination therapies (TACTs), which combine existing co-formulated ACTs with a second partner drug that is slowly eliminated, might provide effective treatment and delay emergence of antimalarial drug resistance.

Methods: In this multicentre, open-label, randomised trial, we recruited patients with uncomplicated P falciparum malaria at 18 hospitals and health clinics in eight countries.

Determinants of dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine treatment failure in Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam: a prospective clinical, pharmacological, and genetic study.

Background: The emergence and spread of resistance in Plasmodium falciparum malaria to artemisinin combination therapies in the Greater Mekong subregion poses a major threat to malaria control and elimination. The current study is part of a multi-country, open-label, randomised clinical trial (TRACII, 2015-18) evaluating the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of triple artemisinin combination therapies. A very high rate of treatment failure after treatment with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine was observed in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Evolution and expansion of multidrug-resistant malaria in southeast Asia: a genomic epidemiology study.

Background: A multidrug-resistant co-lineage of Plasmodium falciparum malaria, named KEL1/PLA1, spread across Cambodia in 2008-13, causing high rates of treatment failure with the frontline combination therapy dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine. Here, we report on the evolution and spread of KEL1/PLA1 in subsequent years.

Methods: For this genomic epidemiology study, we analysed whole genome sequencing data from P falciparum clinical samples collected from patients with malaria between 2007 and 2018 from Cambodia, Laos, northeastern Thailand, and Vietnam, through the MalariaGEN P falciparum Community Project.

Art and theatre for health in rural Cambodia.

This article describes our experience using art and theatre to engage rural communities in western Cambodia to understand malaria and support malaria control and elimination. The project was a pilot science-arts initiative to supplement existing engagement activities conducted by local authorities. In 2016, the project was conducted in 20 villages, involved 300 community members and was attended by more than 8000 people.

Maximizing research study effectiveness in malaria elimination settings: a mixed methods study to capture the experiences of field-based staff.

Background: In a drug-resistant, malaria elimination setting like Western Cambodia, field research is essential for the development of novel anti-malarial regimens and the public health solutions necessary to monitor the spread of resistance and eliminate infection. Such field studies often face a variety of similar implementation challenges, but these are rarely captured in a systematic way or used to optimize future study designs that might overcome similar challenges. Field-based research staff often have extensive experience and can provide valuable insight regarding these issues, but their perspectives and experiences are rarely documented and seldom integrated into future research protocols.

High mobility, low access thwarts interventions among seasonal workers in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: lessons from the malaria containment project.

Background: During the process of malaria elimination in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, mobile and migrant populations (MMPs) have been identified as the most at-risk demographic. An important sub-group of MMPs are seasonal workers, and this paper presents an evaluation of the reach and effectiveness of interventions tailored towards this group and was carried out as part of the Containment Project from 2009-11.

Methods: A mixed-methods study was conducted in Pailin Province in Western Cambodia.

World Malaria Day 2016 in the Kingdom of Cambodia: high-level governmental support embodies the WHO call for "political will to end malaria".

On World Malaria Day 2016, The Kingdom of Cambodia's National celebrations served as a prime of example of how political will is currently being exercised in Cambodia through high-level governmental support for malaria elimination. The main country event was well-planned and coordinated by the National Programme for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM), and included key contributions from high-ranking political figures, such as His Excellency (H.E) Mam Bun Heng (Minister of Health), and H.

History of malaria treatment as a predictor of subsequent subclinical parasitaemia: a cross-sectional survey and malaria case records from three villages in Pailin, western Cambodia.

Background: Treatment of the sub-clinical reservoir of malaria, which may maintain transmission, could be an important component of elimination strategies. The reliable detection of asymptomatic infections with low levels of parasitaemia requires high-volume quantitative polymerase chain reaction (uPCR), which is impractical to conduct on a large scale. It is unknown to what extent sub-clinical parasitaemias originate from recent or older clinical episodes.

Focused Screening and Treatment (FSAT): a PCR-based strategy to detect malaria parasite carriers and contain drug resistant P. falciparum, Pailin, Cambodia.

Recent studies have shown that Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites in Pailin province, along the border between Thailand and Cambodia, have become resistant to artemisinin derivatives. To better define the epidemiology of P. falciparum populations and to assess the risk of the possible spread of these parasites outside Pailin, a new epidemiological tool named "Focused Screening and Treatment" (FSAT), based on active molecular detection of asymptomatic parasite carriers was introduced in 2010.