The OPT-SMC Team meets in Lomé to wrap up its project findings

After more than four years of implementation, the Optimizing Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention project, which is  being implemented in 13 countries in the Sahel Region of Africa  is coming to an end with many success stories to celebrate and lessons learnt for future projects.

Out of the 13 countries that opted to partake in the project, nine countries have completed their projects, one is carrying out data analysis, one is in the data collection phase, one is seeking ethics approval, and the last was unable to start the project.

Funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), the project is supported by the University of Thies, Medicines for Malaria Venture, TDR, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The project was developed to optimize the implementation of SMC, an intervention recommended by the  World Health Organization Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention to reduce the burden of malaria in parts of the Sahel Region of Africa where malaria transmission was mainly seasonal in the burden of malaria was highest in Africa.