Congratulations Dr Katherine O'Flaherty on successful MDHS EMCR Catalyst grant

Investigating malaria and other febrile illness through multi-pathogen serological surveillance

Investigators: CIA Katherine O'Flaherty, CIB Ellen Kearney, CIC Fiona Angrisano, Senior Mentor Freya Fowkes

Value: $40,000

Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Understanding the specific causes of febrile illness in high-burden areas regions is imperative to implementing adequate control and elimination interventions for malaria and other infectious pathogens. Surveillance of malaria is challenging - transmission is geographically heterogenous and isolated within hard-to-reach populations and available diagnostics are too insensitive to give a definitive diagnosis and rule out malaria from other causes of febrile illness. New, scalable, approaches to perform surveillance are required. Sero-surveillance, whereby, antibodies specific for the pathogen/s of interest are measured, can determine recent exposure history. We will determine recent exposure to malaria and other febrile illnesses of concern using a novel multi-pathogen and vector panel of serological biomarkers in a single assay. By measuring exposure to malaria and determining the causes of febrile illness we will provide evidence for improved control and elimination strategies for diseases of concern.

MDHS Early and Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) Project Catalyst Grant supports early and mid-career researchers to generate pilot/feasibility data and lead an external project grant application.