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Platform 7: Randomised Control Trials
In many low and middle income country settings, vector control products often need to be on a WHO recommended list before donors will make large scale purchases. This requires at least two epidemiological impact randomised control trials, which are inevitably time-consuming and usually limited in geographical scale.
Pathways to implement trials in a more streamlined manner, which can improve the evidence base for newer products, could greatly assist the decision-making process for policy makers and procurers in order to expedite product roll-out.
iiCON is pioneering model systems to embed cluster-randomised control trials into large-scale operational programmes, through which it can be demonstrated whether newer products outperform those currently recommended, as well as expanding the reach of trials to new geographies and transmission settings.
By reducing the cost and complexity of these operationally-embedded trials and providing key data-led-insight to a broad range of organisations including non-governmental organisations, governments, and non-profit organisations, iiCON provides expertise to support and inform global health policy decisions.
Led by an expert team at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and partners in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, this platform provides robust data to inform global health policy and supports and enables market access, helping to protect communities from diseases including malaria.
This work is already helping to protect communities and save lives by advancing innovative interventions.
For more information or to learn how your business can engage with this platform.
Platform Lead
Dr David Weetman
Reader, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Dr Weetman graduated in Zoology (BSc) from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and in Ecology (MSc) from The University of Wales, Bangor. His PhD at The University of Liverpool was followed by postdoctoral positions in the Molecular Ecology and Fisheries Genetics Group at the University of Hull. He joined LSTM in 2006 working as a senior PDRA on IVCC and then NIAID-funded projects on the genetic basis of insecticide resistance in the primary malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae. He was appointed as Reader in 2020.
His research aims primarily to investigate the genes and mutations responsible for insecticide resistance in mosquitoes and phlebotomine sandflies and how these spread among populations. A goal of this work is to identify and apply DNA markers for molecular surveillance of insecticide resistance in control programmes. A second area of research is in questions related to the causes and consequences of vector speciation and population subdivision and how these regulate transfer of adaptive traits of medical importance. He is also broadly interested in the application of molecular techniques to applied ecological questions in vector biology. He coordinates the Vector Research Support group (VRS), which provides molecular and biochemical collaboration, training and services to students, visiting scientists and for control trials.
