Clinical trials

The overall aim of the study is to provide evidence that introducing novel biomarkers evaluation at triaging (first clinical assessment), in combination with IMCI-based guidelines (SoC), is a viable strategy to enhance rapid and accurate identification of febrile children at increased risk of life-threatening infections compared to IMCI-based strategies alone (SoC), and to demonstrate whether this results in enhanced decisions of admission/referral vs discharge, and enhanced overall health outcome of children with acute fever in sub-Saharan Africa.

This is a phase 2B/C, open label platform study that will compare the efficacy, safety of experimental regimens with a standard control regimen in participants with newly diagnosed, drug sensitive pulmonary tuberculosis. In stage 1, participants will be randomly allocated to the control or one of the 2 rifampicin-containing experimental regimens in the ratio 1:1:1. In stage 2, the experimental arm 4 containing BTZ-043 will be added. The allocation ratio will be changed to co-enrol the remaining participants in arms 1- 3 simultaneously with arm 4 in a ratio of 1:1:1:2. When arms 1-2 are fully enrolled and arm 4 is not, further participants will be randomized 1:1 to control and experimental arm 4. Not all countries will participate in stage 2. In stage 3, participants will be allocated in parallel to control arm treatment (now designated arm 7) or the experimental arms 5 and 6, favouring arm 5, 2:1:1 over arms 6 and control. This stage will start after completion of recruitment in the stages 1 and 2. Enrolment of participants into arm 5 will proceed following review of data from the ENABLE/UNITE-03 (NCT06748937), non-clinical safety data and after endorsement by the DSMB. Thus, arm 5 recruitment might start after arms 6 and 7, which may require an increase in the control arm sample size to ensure controls are recruited concomitantly.

The ultimate aim of this registry is to collect precise information concerning the children coming to oncology units working with the French African Oncology Group. This data will help to plan and provide correct pediatric oncology treatment and care for this population. Collecting the data will give much needed information on numbers, stage, treatment and outcome. The register will give data for local and national health authorities in planning pediatric cancer programs.

Platform study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of anti-malarial agents in patients with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria

Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium and it is the most important parasitic disease in terms of mortality and morbidity. Estimates of 247 million malaria cases and 619.000 deaths worldwide were reported by WHO for the year 2021 (1). Plasmodium falciparum can lead to severe malaria and accounts for 90% of malaria deaths that mainly occur in children below the age of 5 years in Sub-Saharan Africa. A simplified treatment regimen, ideally a single-day cure (or at most 2-day dosing regimen), of uncomplicated malaria due to P. falciparum would be the magic in the antimalarial armamentarium. Improving treatment adherence is one of the key factors in reducing mortality and morbidity and also the transmission of malaria, and such a regimen would substantially increase adherence. To find a new non-artemisinin combination therapy with a shorter regimen, ideally, a single-dose cure, with low resistance potential would be the aim. The two compounds tested here are ZY19489, a triaminopyrimidine, and ferroquine (FQ), a next-generation 4-aminoquinoline. Both compounds show unique features in terms of long half-life, and activity against current drug-resistant strains. Therefore, the main goal of this clinical trial is to assess the safety of the ZY19489-FQ combination given as a 1- or 2-day dose regimen.