Broadly, MERA India proposes the following activities:
By 2020: Tier 1 (short term; 0-2 years):
- Establish MERA India with clearly articulated Terms of Reference (ToRs).
- Map and create listserv of research organizations and other stakeholders as members and sharing of ToRs. This will include detailing focus areas and research capacity of individual research organizations and gaining commitment.
- Signing of MoU between MERA India and NVBDCP which formalizes the collaboration and roles.
- Constitute Leadership Group, Technical Working Group (TWG) with defined Terms of Reference. The proposed TWG would later advise on overall guidelines and expected deliverables with timelines.
- Compile past and current research pertaining to malaria in India, identify gaps / duplication in current efforts, and subsequently, conduct meta-analysis (research synthesis) to create robust evidence to address programme gaps and challenges. Establish a knowledge-management platform for sharing learning and best practices.
- Capitalize on ICT to create MERA India portal hosted by the research organization serving as Secretariat with links with the NVBDCP and other member organizations.
- Prioritize research topics for short-, medium- and long-term with NVBDCP members and other stakeholders (which would be revisited periodically). Develop a shared roadmap with NVDBCP.
- Conduct needs assessment of capacity needs, identify and expand existing capacity building efforts and provide additional capacity building support.
- Initiate and coordinate planning and execution of supplementary and complementary research - few priority mission-mode projects through trans-institutional coordination and or independently by member(s) of MERA India and by identifying/pooling resources drawing from members’ areas of expertise and possibly desired areas in which they expect to gain expertise.
- Initiate multilogues by organizing stakeholder consultations.
- Initiate sharing of evidence from research. Lead conferences, seminars to share the best practices, strategies and tools to allow stakeholders to learn from one another what is working and what is not.
- Participate in policy/strategy consultations at national and international levels.
- Initiate creation of policy briefs based on research findings, as needed and appropriate.
By 2022: Tier 2 (medium term; 3-4 years):
- Review research priorities especially focusing on areas that could pose threat to sustaining malaria elimination and/or reintroduction to infection in districts/areas, which have eliminated malaria.
- Review MERA India ToRs and revise, as needed and appropriate.
- Continue planning and coordination for those research priorities. [In medium-term as elimination is achieved in phased manner, further prioritization may include: few basic research areas in parasite (deciphering new targets & resistance mechanisms) and vector biology (novel vector control tools) and drug-designing / marketing (shortening the lead-to-field pipeline) that could be emerging threat to sustaining malaria elimination and/or reintroduction to infection in districts/areas which have eliminated malaria.
- Continue identification, facilitation for sufficient and sustained resources.
- Continue sharing of evidence.
By 2030: Tier 3 (longer term; 5-10 years):
- Review research priorities especially focusing on country wide malaria elimination.
- Continue planning and coordination for those research priorities.
- Deliver evidence-based research outcomes from basic and applied research conducted in support of the achieving elimination and preventing/mitigating the possibilities of re-introduction of malaria cases. [In the longer term, which coincides with achieving zero incidence of indigenous malaria cases in India, evidence-based research outcomes from basic and applied research would be aimed at to support elimination and preventing/mitigating the possibilities of re-introduction of malaria cases. The deliverables under such research categories would include, but not limited to, registration of new antimalarials, implementation of novel vector control tools and newer highly sensitive point-of-care approaches towards identifying and diagnosing all human plasmodium parasites whether carried by human or mosquito hosts. The research areas as proposed in Annex-1 may also continue, as needed].
- Support NVBDCP in seeking malaria elimination certification.