Browsing by Author "Ruiz-Castillo, Paula"
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- Alternative approaches for creating a wealth index: the case of MozambiqueXie, Kexin; Marathe, Achla; Deng, Xinwei; Ruiz-Castillo, Paula; Imputiua, Saimado; Elobolobo, Eldo; Mutepa, Victor; Sale, Mussa; Nicolas, Patricia; Montana, Julia; Jamisse, Edgar; Munguambe, Humberto; Materrula, Felisbela; Casellas, Aina; Rabinovich, Regina; Saute, Francisco; Chaccour, Carlos J.; Sacoor, Charfudin; Rist, Cassidy (BMJ, 2023-08)Introduction: The wealth index is widely used as a proxy for a household's socioeconomic position (SEP) and living standard. This work constructs a wealth index for the Mopeia district in Mozambique using data collected in year 2021 under the BOHEMIA (Broad One Health Endectocide-based Malaria Intervention in Africa) project. Methods: We evaluate the performance of three alternative approaches against the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) method based wealth index: feature selection principal components analysis (PCA), sparse PCA and robust PCA. The internal coherence between four wealth indices is investigated through statistical testing. Validation and an evaluation of the stability of the wealth index are performed with additional household income data from the BOHEMIA Health Economics Survey and the 2018 Malaria Indicator Survey data in Mozambique. Results: The Spearman's rank correlation between wealth index ventiles from four methods is over 0.98, indicating a high consistency in results across methods. Wealth rankings and households' income show a strong concordance with the area under the curve value of ∼0.7 in the receiver operating characteristic analysis. The agreement between the alternative wealth indices and the DHS wealth index demonstrates the stability in rankings from the alternative methods. Conclusions: This study creates a wealth index for Mopeia, Mozambique, and shows that DHS method based wealth index is an appropriate proxy for the SEP in low-income regions. However, this research recommends feature selection PCA over the DHS method since it uses fewer asset indicators and constructs a high-quality wealth index.
- BOHEMIA a cluster randomized trial to assess the impact of an endectocide-based one health approach to malaria in Mozambique: baseline demographics and key malaria indicatorsRuiz-Castillo, Paula; Imputiua, Saimado; Xie, Kexin; Elobolobo, Eldo; Nicolas, Patricia; Montaña, Julia; Jamisse, Edgar; Munguambe, Humberto; Materrula, Felisbela; Casellas, Aina; Deng, Xinwei; Marathe, Achla; Rabinovich, Regina; Saute, Francisco; Chaccour, Carlos; Sacoor, Charfudin (2023-06-04)Background Many geographical areas of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in rural settings, lack complete and up-to-date demographic data, posing a challenge for implementation and evaluation of public health interventions and carrying out large-scale health research. A demographic survey was completed in Mopeia district, located in the Zambezia province in Mozambique, to inform the Broad One Health Endectocide-based Malaria Intervention in Africa (BOHEMIA) cluster randomized clinical trial, which tested ivermectin mass drug administration to humans and/or livestock as a potential novel strategy to decrease malaria transmission. Methods The demographic survey was a prospective descriptive study, which collected data of all the households in the district that accepted to participate. Households were mapped through geolocation and identified with a unique identification number. Basic demographic data of the household members was collected and each person received a permanent identification number for the study. Results 25,550 households were mapped and underwent the demographic survey, and 131,818 individuals were registered in the district. The average household size was 5 members and 76.9% of households identified a male household head. Housing conditions are often substandard with low access to improved water systems and electricity. The reported coverage of malaria interventions was 71.1% for indoor residual spraying and 54.1% for universal coverage of long-lasting insecticidal nets. The median age of the population was 15 years old. There were 910 deaths in the previous 12 months reported, and 43.9% were of children less than 5 years of age. Conclusions The study showed that the district had good coverage of vector control tools against malaria but sub-optimal living conditions and poor access to basic services. The majority of households are led by males and Mopeia Sede/Cuacua is the most populated locality in the district. The population of Mopeia is young (< 15 years) and there is a high childhood mortality. The results of this survey were crucial as they provided the household and population profiles and allowed the design and implementation of the cluster randomized clinical trial. Trial registration NCT04966702.
- BOHEMIA: Broad One Health Endectocide-based Malaria Intervention in Africa—a phase III cluster-randomized, open-label, clinical trial to study the safety and efficacy of ivermectin mass drug administration to reduce malaria transmission in two African settingsChaccour, Carlos; Casellas, Aina; Hammann, Felix; Ruiz-Castillo, Paula; Nicolas, Patricia; Montaña, Julia; Mael, Mary; Selvaraj, Prashant; Duthaler, Urs; Mrema, Sigilbert; Kakolwa, Mwaka; Lyimo, Issa; Okumu, Fredros; Marathe, Achla; Schürch, Roger; Elobolobo, Eldo; Sacoor, Charfudin; Saute, Francisco; Xia, Kang; Jones, Caroline; Rist, Cassidy; Maia, Marta; Rabinovich, N. R. (2023-02-21)Background Residual malaria transmission is the result of adaptive mosquito behavior that allows malaria vectors to thrive and sustain transmission in the presence of good access to bed nets or insecticide residual spraying. These behaviors include crepuscular and outdoor feeding as well as intermittent feeding upon livestock. Ivermectin is a broadly used antiparasitic drug that kills mosquitoes feeding on a treated subject for a dose-dependent period. Mass drug administration with ivermectin has been proposed as a complementary strategy to reduce malaria transmission. Methods A cluster randomized, parallel arm, superiority trial conducted in two settings with distinct eco-epidemiological conditions in East and Southern Africa. There will be three groups: human intervention, consisting of a dose of ivermectin (400 mcg/kg) administered monthly for 3 months to all the eligible population in the cluster (>15 kg, non-pregnant and no medical contraindication); human and livestock intervention, consisting human treatment as above plus treatment of livestock in the area with a single dose of injectable ivermectin (200 mcg/kg) monthly for 3 months; and controls, consisting of a dose of albendazole (400 mg) monthly for 3 months. The main outcome measure will be malaria incidence in a cohort of children under five living in the core of each cluster followed prospectively with monthly RDTs Discussion The second site for the implementation of this protocol has changed from Tanzania to Kenya. This summary presents the Mozambique-specific protocol while the updated master protocol and the adapted Kenya-specific protocol undergo national approval in Kenya. BOHEMIA will be the first large-scale trial evaluating the impact of ivermectin-only mass drug administration to humans or humans and cattle on local malaria transmission.
- Insecticide-treated livestock: a potential One Health approach to malaria control in AfricaRuiz-Castillo, Paula; Rist, Cassidy; Rabinovich, Regina; Chaccour, Carlos J. (Elsevier, 2022-02-01)New vector-control tools are urgently needed to reduce malaria in areas where there is significant transmission after deployment of indoor residual spraying (IRS) and insecticide treated nets. Insecticide-treated livestock (ITL) is a potential novel strategy by which zoophagic mosquitos are killed after feeding upon animals treated with an insecticide. Although there are several insecticide candidates in the pipeline with a wide efficacy range against mosquitos, additional field studies with epidemiological outcomes are required to test the impact of this intervention on malaria transmission. Insecticides under consideration have long been used in livestock to improve animal health and productivity, but each has food and environmental safety considerations. Therefore, moving ITL from a concept to implementation will require a One Health framework.