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Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium Access Workshop in Côte d’Ivoire - February 2022
Towards the end of February, members of the Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium Access Team met in Côte d’Ivoire for a two-day workshop held on the campus of the University Félix Houphouët-Boigny (UFHB) in Abidjan.
Since the launch of the ADOPT Program in early 2021, this is the second workshop to take place in Côte d’Ivoire, following a previous meeting hosted by the Ministry of Health in October last year.
The workshop was hosted by the social science unit of the university (UFR des Sciences Sociales, UFHB) under the leadership of Prof. Alain Toh, principal investigator of the social science study in Côte d’Ivoire. After the official opening given by Dr Aboulayé Meité, NTD Director at the Côte d’Ivoire Ministry of Health, the sessions were chaired by members of the UFR des Sciences Sociales, the UFR Biosciences from UFHB and the NTD program.
In addition to the Ministry of Health and UFHB, representatives from Consortium partners Technical University of Munich (TUM), Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and SCI Foundation (SCIF) were in attendance.
Key discussion points
The main objective of the workshop was to discuss the progress of the ongoing social science field study in Côte d’Ivoire, which is part of the Consortium’s implementation research program, ADOPT. Complemented by data collected in Kenya and Uganda, the aim of this study is to identify potential facilitators and barriers to the implementation of the new pediatric treatment (arpraziquantel), and inform an appropriate social mobilization, communication, and training strategy.
Besides fruitful exchanges on the research methodology, preliminary results were shared and discussed during the workshop. Moreover, under guidance of Prof. Eliézer K. N’Goran (UFR Biosciences, UFHB) partners made use of the opportunity to align on the next steps regarding the final selection of drug delivery platforms for the integration of arpraziquantel, once registered.
Next steps
The Access Team will now focus on completing the data collection in Côte d’Ivoire and subsequent data analysis to inform the social mobilization, communication and training strategy, and the final selection of the delivery platforms for pilot testing.