You are invited to take part in a pioneering malaria challenge study to help us find out more about relapsing malaria and develop a new method for testing vaccines to prevent relapsing malaria infections. The study is being conducted by the Oxford Vaccine Group, Centre for Clinical Vaccinology & Tropical Medicine (CCVTM), and the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford.

If you are 18 to 45 years of age, in good health, live in Oxfordshire or the surrounding area and able to travel to the Netherlands for the challenge visit, then you may be able to take part.

You would need to attend study visits over a period of 7.5 months. This is followed by a fortnightly email questionnaire for 4 months and then annually for 4 years.  We will reimburse you for your time, inconvenience, and travel. You will receive approximately £5,270 (dependent on number of relapse infections) for your participation.

Background

Malaria is an infection transmitted by mosquitoes. Plasmodium vivax is the most widespread of all the malaria species known to cause the disease in humans with approximately 3.3 billion people living in areas at risk of infection. P. vivax causes serious illness and deaths in many areas of the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan and South America. Between 2018-2022, more than 5 million P. vivax infections occurred every year.

Unlike other malaria species, P. vivax produces a dormant form of infection called a hypnozoite. Hypnozoites hide in the liver and can later reawaken to cause another active malaria infection. Without effective treatment, these “relapse infections” can occur several times over the months or years after the mosquito bite which introduced the infection in the first place.  It is estimated that 80-90% of all P. vivax malaria cases are due to relapse infections.

Study Details

We are conducting the BIO-006 study to try and find out more about relapsing malaria infections. It is a malaria challenge study. This means it involves deliberately infecting volunteers with malaria in a safe and controlled way.

We will deliberately allow our participants to experience relapsing P. vivax infections over a 6-month period, each of which will be treated with tablets to clear the active infection. At the end of this period, all participants will be treated with tablets to clear any active and any inactive malaria parasites (hypnozoites) in the liver, to prevent any further infections occurring.

The BIO-006 study will provide us with valuable information about relapse malaria infections. Success would also mean that we could repeat a similar study in the future to test new vaccines or medications that could be used to treat or prevent relapsing malaria.

You would need to attend study visits over a period of 7.5 months. This is followed by a fortnightly email questionnaire for 4 months and then annually for 4 years. We will be administering the malaria infection by mosquito bites at Radboud University Medical Center (RUMC) in Nijmegen, Netherlands. All other study visits will take place in Oxford. We will perform a health check and take blood samples to check your general health, look at the immune response and ensure the active malaria infection has cleared.

Further Information

If you would like to find out more, please read the below:

o    Participant Information Sheet OR
o    Participant Information Sheet – abbreviated version

If you are interested in joining the study, please visit the Prescreening Questionnaire where you can access the screening questions and register your interest.

If you have further questions after reading this, please contact us on:

Email: info@ovg.ox.ac.uk

Phone: 01865 611400