South-East African Regional Centre

• We work with MARC SE-Africa to brings together clinical researchers who are experts in implementation research, malaria chemotherapy and health policy, national malaria programmes, and end users. We are working together to improve estimates of antimalarial drug resistance and co-design a costed, Regional and Locally-Adapted Detailed Action Plans, to respond promptly to emerging antimalarial drug resistance. We will develop dynamically-updated, evidence-based malaria treatment guidelines and graphic evidence summaries using MAGICapp, communicate them to the people who need them, and evaluate the effectiveness of these plans.
• We provide up to date systematic reviews on clinical and molecular evidence of antimalarial drug efficacy/resistance across this region, complementing similar efforts in other regions.
• We build, pilot test and support antimalarial drug efficacy surveillance.  This includes WWARN Smart Surveillance in regional initiatives (such as Malaria Elimination 8 (E8)  and MOZASWA) and countries working towards malaria elimination (including South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Zanzibar and Madagascar). This complements similar efforts in the Horn of Africa and across South-East Asia, with skills and evidence sharing to further strengthen elimination efforts.

• We lead the WWARN Pharmacology Scientific Group (hosted by the University of Cape Town MRC Collaborating Centre for Optimising Antimalarial Therapy (CCOAT)). This study group complements the work of the WWARN Pharmacometrics Scientific Group and WWARN External Quality Analysis Programmes (hosted by the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand).
• We contribute to WWARN multi-disciplinary Study Group activities, including analyses to inform optimal malaria treatment in vulnerable sub-populations (including malnourished young children, ACT safety  and  tolerability, and malaria transmission blocking with single low dose primaquine).
• We support capacity building activities with a focus on:
  • Training WHO TDR Clinical Research Leadership Fellows from across this region, helping to provide the evidence to inform optimal malaria treatment.
  • Expanding our Tools and Resources to meet the needs of researchers collecting data to understand and tackle antimalarial resistance. We work with collaborators including The Global Health Network (TGHN) to do this.

Get involved in our activities: create or join a Study Group, participate in advocacy and capacity building activities, or share your ideas for a partner meeting or conference. Get in touch with us at wwarn@wwarn.org.