Resistance of Plasmodium species to previous generations of medicines, such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), influenced the replacement of chloroquine (CQ) with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) then artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for treatment of malaria in Tanzania. Moreover, routine monitoring and provision of latest information on the scope of antimalarial resistance for protecting the recent advances in malaria elimination and eradication is recommended.

However, countries such as Tanzania where malaria is endemic but has limited resources have impractically failed to establish its own antimalarial resistance surveillance system, which includes equipped laboratories that can perform parasites culture and screen for antimalarial resistance markers.

Therefore, this study aims at validating cost effective and efficient method where Plasmodium falciparum whole genome will be selectively generated from dried blood samples collected directly from patients without culture adaptation, refrigeration and requiring special transportation and storage conditions and determine unknown and known antimalarial resistance associated markers such as kelch13 allele, pfcrt, pfdhfr, pfdhps, pfmdr1 and resistance to ACT partner drugs, such as piperaquine and mefloquine.

Publications

• Occurrence of septuple and elevated Pfdhfr-Pfdhps quintuple mutations in a general population threatens the use of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine for malaria prevention during pregnancy in eastern coast of Tanzania
  Bwire et al
  BMC Infectious Diseases, 2020; 20 530
  10.1186/s12879-020-05253-7
• Detection of mutations associated with artemisinin resistance at k13- propeller gene and a near complete return of chloroquine susceptible falciparum malaria in Southeast of Tanzania
  Bwire et al
  Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 3500
  10.1038/s41598-020-60549-7