Navrongo Health Research Centre

Navrongo Health Research Centre is adjoined to the Navrongo War Memorial Hospital, a 110-bed hospital facility in the Kassena Nankana District, which has more than 10,000 outpatient visits and admissions due to malaria annually. In collaboration with the US Naval Medical Research Centre, studies have been conducted on malaria attack rates in an area of high transmission, the dynamics of anaemia, and a prophylactic dose-ranging trial of tafenoquine, an investigational anti-malarial drug. Navrongo Health Research Centre works closely with the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.

People

• Lucas Amenga Etego (MalariaGEN Data Fellow)

How the team is contributing to MalariaGEN

The Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, together with the Navrongo Health Research Centre, is recruiting children with severe malaria and ethnically-matched controls for Consortial Project 1. They are also participating in Consortial Project 3.

For Consortial Project 1 the team planned to recruit 300 cases of severe malaria and matching controls during the high transmission seasons. However, recruitment of severe cases was lower than expected. Firstly, there appeared to be a general decline in severe malaria prevalence. This may have been due to the change from chloroquine to a combination of artesunate and amodiaquine as first-line treatment for malaria in Ghana. Secondly, there is a heavily subsidised mutual health insurance scheme operating nationwide. As a result mothers and caregivers tend to bring malaria cases to health facilities earlier than they did previously. The study design has now been adapted and cases are being collected by revisiting participants from a previous study. The team are also taking part in research into seeking consent to genomic research.

Two sets of 30 trios have been recruited for Consortial Project 3.

Learn more about these projects by reading Lucas Amenga-Etego's account of the challenges of recruiting severe malaria cases (more>>) and of engaging with local communitiesin Northern Ghana (more>>).