Accelerating Programming for Malaria in Pregnancy

The Malaria in Pregnancy Working Group (MiP WG) met on 15-16 July in Accra, Ghana, to provide the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership with strategic advice on best practices for scaling up interventions for the prevention and control of malaria during pregnancy towards the achievement of RBM targets and MDGs. ISGlobal joined the Malaria in Pregnancy Working Group in 2012. 

Participants in the meeting reviewed country progress in terms of adoption and implementation of IPTp policy, discussed new technical evidence and promising programming practices, and examined how to better integrate Malaria in Pregnancy programming into reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services. During the Technical Evidence and Programmatic Considerations Session, Dr. Clara Menéndez, Director of ISGlobal's Maternal, Newborn and Reproductive Health Initiative, presented her work on the Malaria in Pregnancy Preventive Alternative Drugs project: "Alternatives drugs for IPTp: results from the MIPPAD multicentre trial". Later, ISGlobal researcher and malaria in pregnancy expert, Azucena Bardají, presented a session entitled "Overview of Malaria in Pregnancy in the Latin American región".

The Malaria in Pregnancy Preventive Alternative Drugs project (2008-2013), which was coordinated by Dr. Clara Menendez, was designed to compare the safety and efficacy of mefloquine and the currently recommended drug for IPTp, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, in order to contribute to the development of new clinical interventions to fight against malaria.