Strategy:
- Identify research priorities in line with the national strategies for malaria elimination and revisit periodically in view of the changing dynamics of the disease.
- Support research targeted to (but not limited to) ensuring quality diagnosis, case management, vector control and generation of new evidence and tools. Operational research relating to the introduction of new tools, improving patients / communities access to existing tools, improving the sustainability and effectiveness of services and appropriate surveillance & responses would be prioritized.
- Plan supplementary and complementary research through consultation with NVBDCP and stakeholders. This would help in identifying suitable research organization(s), identifying and resolving roadblocks to ensure completion of research with robust internal and external validation and permit its translation into tangible outcomes for the programme.
Strategy:
- Promote the stakeholder engagement throughout the process of research, from the identification of priorities to its translation. Multilogues across national and international stakeholders and alliances would be coordinated for a productive exchange relating to the malaria research domain (for example, MERA India could join the WHO supported 10+1 initiative). International participation plays a critical role in malaria research at the national level as well as in South-to-South collaboration/alliance(s).
- Create an enabling environment for sharing of resources, infrastructure, capacities and expertise. The potential funders, researchers, planners, administrators, and program implementers would be brought together at one platform to complement and harmonize efforts, ensure and advocate for sufficient and sustained financing. Strategic opportunities (internal and external) would be identified and harmonized.
Strategy:
- Promote strong trans-institutional coordination in planning, conducting the prioritized research by the most suitable research organization(s) so that the existing resources (facilities, manpower, funding) and the cost-benefit ratio are optimized.
- Provide support in identifying and pooling of resources.
- Facilitate capacity building and strengthening for cutting-edge research.
- Identify research organizations where additional partnership is required and invite partners to support research projects.
- With technical guidance from the WHO and other Regional/National Advisory Committees/Bodies, establish stream-lined processes for the development of protocols, procedures for the submission, review (including ethical clearance) and routine monitoring of research projects.
Strategy:
- Generate high quality evidence for: improving strategies for surveillance and delivery of/access to tools; availability of quality diagnostics, safe and effective therapeutic options, novel vector control tools and develop policy briefs for malaria elimination, amongst others.
- Based on each project, findings would be disseminated at the appropriate forums and through publications. Develop mechanisms that would enable research community (both inside and outside of the alliance) and policy makers, other programme partners and others to access relevant research evidence in an accessible format, when and where needed.
- Accelerate growth of the malaria elimination knowledge base. It is envisaged that country-wide repositories for evidence on malaria elimination research would be established and widely shared, similar to existing repositories for clinical evidence such as the Cochrane database. Constant availability and regular updating of such a research-evidence database would enable the programme to utilize these inputs in translating the research into tangible malaria elimination policy, strategy and achieve targeted outcomes, impact.
- Advocate scaling up the findings of the research tuned to programme needs. Research in India has witnessed many important small-scale attempts to address the gaps, challenges of malaria elimination, yet the scale of these efforts and investments has fallen short of the needs of the programme. Concerted research initiative needs to be promoted at a scale that would really fuel the programme efforts.