Estimating the impact of Plasmodium vivax Serological Testing and Treatment (PvSeroTAT) in the context of programmatic implementation and scale-up studies

• PhD

While cluster randomised clinical trials (CRTs) are the gold standard to determine the efficacy of novel public health interventions, these trials are generally very expensive and take many years from inception to final results. As a consequence, few of these trials are done. For PvSeroTAT a single large cluster randomised trial is being conducted. However, these are an increasing number of pilot implementation and scale-up studies being conducted in several countries. This PhD will develop and apply statistical and mathematical models to estimate the impact of PvSeroTAT and other malaria control interventions on malaria burden from both CRTs and non-CRT PvSeroTAT studies and extrapolate these results to other settings and PvSeroTAT implementation modes.

The aim of the PhD project is to assist in the development and validation of P. vivax sero-diagnostic tests across diverse transmission settings, evaluate pilot and scale-up studies to quantify epidemiological impact, and contribute to frameworks that enable national malaria programs and other parties to integrate PvSeroTaT into elimination strategies. The PhD student will work as part of the Vivax Serology Partnership (VISPA) consortium: Expanding Access to Vivax Serology Diagnostics), which is across multiple institutes within Australia, Europe and throughout vivax endemic areas in the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America.

The Mueller Laboratory’s research interest is the interaction between infectious diseases and the human host. The lab has primarily focused on the malaria parasite Plasmodium with the addition of research on COVID-19 in recent years.

Within the malaria program of work the Mueller lab’s vision is to develop novel tools and interventions to aid malaria elimination. A focus of our research is on Plasmodium vivax, the parasite responsible for most malaria cases in Australia’s neighbours in the Asia-Pacific.

Aims of our research are to understand:

• which people in malaria-affected communities are getting infected with Plasmodium parasites?
• which people are at high risk of getting sick with malaria and what factors contribute to this?
• how do hidden P. vivax parasites that cause relapses of disease contribute to the burden of infection, morbidity, and transmission?
• how do we identify people at the highest risk of P. vivax relapse and can we prevent these relapses through appropriate treatment?

We are using this knowledge to monitor the impact of malaria control and to develop new interventions to treat malaria, prevent new infections and identify and target areas of high transmission risk. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to malaria elimination programs.