Intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp)

This is an active Deep Dive and we welcome your contributions! If you are currently involved or planning research activities on Intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) please contact MESA (mesa@isglobal.org) or add your project to the database.

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A WHO Technical Consultation to Review the Role of Drugs in Malaria Prevention for People Living in Endemic Settings took place on October 16 – 17, 2019 [ref]. The meeting discussed malaria chemoprevention including SMC, IPTi and IPTp strategies, with the aim to review the state-of-the-art in the use of chemoprevention to reduce deaths, morbidity and anaemia from malaria, and to reduce malaria transmission, and provide guidance to WHO on priority investments in malaria chemoprevention for people living in endemic settings.

To facilitate the meeting’s work, MESA is compiling a landscape of recent and ongoing research in intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp), a strategy recommended by WHO to protect women in areas of moderate and high malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. The antimalarial drug recommended to be given as IPTp to all pregnant women at antenatal care (ANC) visits is sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), which has been shown to reduce maternal anaemia, low birth weight and perinatal mortality.