Using monthly malaria pill visits to support children’s nutrition and health
Official title: Leveraging the seasonal malaria chemoprevention platform to address malaria and malnutrition
Funded at University of California, San Francisco · NIH-11240334 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project adds nutrition and other child-health services to the monthly malaria drug visits for young children in Burkina Faso to help them stay healthier during the rainy season.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R21 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California, San Francisco NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (San Francisco, United States) |
| Project start | December 4, 2024 |
| Project end | November 30, 2026 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $161,212 |
| NIH project number | 5R21AI182714-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11240334 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Young children aged 3 to 59 months (about 3 months to 5 years) who live in SMC-covered communities in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso are the intended participants.
✕Less likely to help
Older children, adults, children outside the target geographic area, or children with medical reasons that prevent them from receiving SP-AQ are unlikely to benefit from participating.
What this research studies
If your child joins, community health workers will come to homes each month to give the standard seasonal malaria medicines (SP-AQ) and also deliver extra supports such as nutrition screening, counseling, or supplements. The team will follow children aged 3 to 59 months through the high-risk rainy months to see how the combined services affect malaria illness and growth. Health workers will record illnesses, weight and other child-health measures during and after the season. The work is a pilot to see whether adding these services to the established malaria-delivery visits is practical and helpful for families.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, the approach could lower malaria cases and improve nutrition and growth for young children during the high-risk season.
How similar studies have gone: Seasonal malaria chemoprevention is already proven to cut clinical malaria in children, and prior work suggests antimalarial treatment can help weight gain, but combining SMC with nutrition co-interventions is a relatively new, pilot approach.
Where this research is happening
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University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Oldenburg, Catherine Elizabeth — University of California, San Francisco
- Study coordinator: Oldenburg, Catherine Elizabeth
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
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Using monthly malaria prevention visits to help prevent child malnutrition
This project uses monthly door-to-door malaria medicine deliveries to also provide extra care to young children in the Sahel to try to reduce both malaria and malnutrition.
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Using malaria prevention methods to also tackle malnutrition in children
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.