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This module gives an overview of malaria transmission, epidemiology, disease burden and control, including operational challenges and threats to efficacy of control and treatment measures. Examples of topics covered will be malaria and co-infections; malaria in pregnancy; economic aspects and financing; vaccines; drug, diagnostic and insecticide resistance; vivax malaria and malaria in SE Asia; quality of measures of malaria control and treatment; malaria in emergencies and malaria elimination. There will also be a panel discussion with experts working in the field, both LSHTM-based and those from endemic countries.

The overall module aim is to give students a deeper view of malaria as a public health problem, by building connections between a wide variety of aspects and viewpoints, by critical appraisal of the control tools available and how they might be applied, and by considering some current topics in depth. Cross-cutting skills learnt in this module are applicable not only to malaria but other infectious diseases as well.

Intended learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the module a student will be able to:

1. Discuss the environmental, biological, political and social roots of malaria as a public health problem;
2. Describe cutting edge interventions available or under development for malaria control;
3. Identify and apply appropriate control measures according to the malaria epidemiology of a given setting;
4. Synthesise the cross-cutting principles of the module and apply to the design of their own control programme, intervention trial or elimination strategy proposal.

Mode of delivery

This module is delivered predominantly face-to-face. Where specific teaching methods (lectures, seminars, discussion groups) are noted in this module specification these will be delivered by predominantly face-to-face sessions. There will be a combination of live and interactive activities (synchronous learning) as well as self-directed study (asynchronous learning).

Assessment

The assessment for this module has been designed to measure student learning against the module intended learning outcomes (ILOs) as listed above. Formative assessment methods may be used to measure students’ progress. The grade for summative assessment(s) only will go towards the overall award GPA.

The assessment for this module will be submitted online, via Moodle.

The assessment is an individual written project report of strictly 2000 words. The project is developed in an evolutionary fashion, through discussions with an assigned tutor. The assessment is based around designing interventions to address typical malaria challenges in an endemic country, chosen by the student from a set of malaria endemic country settings. For the report, students are expected to develop a proposal within one of the following areas:

• Malaria Control Programme: In this option, students make a case study of a particular location and design one element of a national malaria control plan for that context;
• Intervention Trial: In this option, students select a particular control problem, method or context and design a field trial with specific research objectives to evaluate a novel intervention;
• Elimination Plan: In this option students develop an outline plan to design an intensive malaria control programme to eliminate malaria within a selected location.

Credits

• CATS: 15
• ECTS: 7.5

Module specification

For full information regarding this module please see the module specification.