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Katherine Plewes earns Canadian grant for KIMORU based study

KIMORU

Working closely with the University of British Columbia (UBC)'s Support Program to Advance Research Capacity (SPARC), MORU Malaria Researcher Dr Katherine Plewes was recently awarded a 3-year, C$971,551 grant for her study on Evaluating the renoprotective effect of acetaminophen in pediatric severe falciparum malaria: A randomized controlled trial.

Katherine Plewes

The study, a much larger version of Katherine’s earlier randomized controlled trial in adults with severe malaria in Chittagong, Bangladesh that showed that paracetamol improved kidney function and reduced the odds of developing Acute kidney injury (AKI), an important problem that contributes to an estimated 1.7 million deaths annually.

As children bear the major burden of malaria, Katherine’s study will test this protective effect in on African children, where AKI affects up to 45% of patients. With an ultimate goal to assess the role of paracetamol as a renoprotective adjunctive therapy in severe malaria, Katherine with Dr Caterina Fanello and the team at DR Congo will conduct at KIMORU, Kinshasa a randomized controlled trial of adjunctive paracetamol in 460 African children with severe malaria. The study  is expected to begin in September 2019.

Arjen Dondorp (MORU) is co-primary grant applicant. Dr. Caterina Fanello, Dr. Marie Onyamboko (both KIMORU), Prof Kevin Kain (University of Toronto), Dr. Adeera Levin (UBC) and Dr. Mavuto Mukaka (MORU) are co-applicants, and Prof John Oates (Vanderbilt University) is collaborator.

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