Ongoing trial in Muheza, Tanzania is testing a new AI for IRS

This week ends a month long spray-campaign in the district of Muheza, Tanzania. The trial, funded by Bayer and IVCC, is a two-arm community trial, designed to meet WHO PQ-VCT criteria. The trial is managed by PAMVERC team from NIMR Muheza, KCMUCo and LSHTM.

The insecticide, Fludora Fusion, is one of the first mixture IRS available for public health use. The IRS combines a pyrethroid which have been well known in malaria vector control for the last two decades with a neonicotinoid insecticide, clothianidin.

Over the next 9 months, field teams will conduct routine entomology monitoring including cone bioassays to monitor residual efficiency and exit and light traps to monitor vector density. Resistance testing (CDC bottle bioassays) will be conducted using wild caught larvae reared to adults in the Ubwari Insectary at NIMR Muheza. Two malaria prevalence surveys will be carried out in all 12 study clusters. Social scientist will conduct acceptability surveys and focus group interviews to monitor perceptions of the intervention in the community.