ACT Consortium to host five symposia at MIM Conference in South Africa

28 August 2013

ACT Consortium members will present five symposium sessions at the 6th MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference, which takes place from the 6th to 11th October 2013 in Durban, South Africa.

The MIM Secretariat has accepted five symposium abstracts from the ACT Consortium, which will be presented on the 7th and 9th of October at the International Convention Centre in Durban.

Since the last MIM conference in 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya, a large proportion of the 25 studies from the ACT Consortium has been completed and project teams are preparing to share their findings. MIM is considered the world’s largest gathering of the malaria community. Its theme – “Moving towards malaria elimination: Investing in research and control” – offers a unique opportunity to showcase research outcomes.

Health economists Kristian Hansen and Virginia Wiseman will host a cost-effectiveness symposium, explaining how different interventions within the ACT Consortium are designed to support the introduction and roll-out of rapid diagnostic tests across a range of countries with different delivery systems.

The Consortium’s lead social scientist Clare Chandler and Evelyn Ansah from the Ghana Health Service will co-chair the presentation of findings from studies that evaluated the impact of introducing rapid diagnostic tests in different health sectors.

The Director and one of the Deputy Directors of the Consortium, David Schellenberg and Shunmay Yeung will then introduce an overview of how this global research partnership is working to improve ACT access, targeting, safety and quality.

The last symposium taking place on 7th October is hosted by Catherine Goodman from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Kathleen Maloney from the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Uganda. The session presents findings from four studies and aims to discuss the improvement of care in the retail sector in Africa.

The safety of malaria drugs in patients who also take HIV treatment is the theme of the final ACT Consortium symposium on the 9th October. Director David Schellenberg and Lasse Vestergaard from the University of Copenhagen will present findings from recent studies conducted in Tanzania and Uganda.