PAVE Peru Feasibility Study Preparatory Visit, April 2022

The protocol for the PAVE Peru Feasibility Study was approved by the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) Ethics Committee in Lima, Peru in March 2022, and the study is now in the planning phases. The PAVE study team visited Peru for planning meetings in April 2022.

During the visit the team held in-person working sessions to discuss the study protocol and to plan activities including the selection of health care facilities participating in the study. In addition, the team further developed the qualitative research and pharmacovigilance components of the study. 

The team held meetings with key national- and regional-level stakeholders to introduce the study. In Lima, the team met with the Vice Minister of Health, Dr Joel Candia, members of his team as well as an advisor to the Director of the National Institute of Health. They also met with Dr Zumaeta, Health Director at DIRESA Loreto in Iquitos, along with the Director of the Disease Prevention Center, members of the Public Health Laboratory, the Environmental Health Department and a PAHO national malaria consultant.

The team also visited the Loreto regional hospital which will act as the main referral hospital for the feasibility study. They then visited both higher and lower-level health facilities in Loreto which have been pre-selected for the study. These visits gave the team the opportunity to confirm their understanding of how malaria services are delivered and in particular how patients are diagnosed and treated and how referral pathways work. They were able to review the routine data collection forms and see how they can be adapted to collect additional data needed for the study.

The Master Protocol for this study had been submitted to the WHO Research Ethics Review Committee (WHO ERC) ahead of the team’s visit to Peru, and was approved as submitted on the 29th April 2022. 

The team is now working hard to put all agreements in place to start training of health workers in October 2022, and to begin patient enrolment in April 2023.