Plus Project

The Plus Project is a Unitaid-funded project to co-design, pilot, and evaluate country-adapted models of Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention (PMC) – the recent WHO recommendation which includes what was previously called Intermittent Preventive Treatment in infants (IPTi) using sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) in four focus countries: Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, and Mozambique. Underpinning these PMC pilots are training, routine monitoring, supervision, and community engagement activities integrated into existing country systems.

Awarded in 2021 at 35 million USD over 4.25 years, the project is led by Population Services International (PSI). In partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the project is also conducting a robust package of evaluations to generate evidence aimed at accelerating the adoption and scale-up of PMC in the project countries and other malaria-endemic countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Plus Project will share learnings from implementation experience and research evidence to help countries decide if and how to use PMC as part of their malaria chemoprevention strategies. This includes supporting the PMC Community of Practice and rolling out a variety of external communications activities. The project has also helped to establish country advisory groups or technical working groups in project countries that are MoH-led and meet regularly to review PMC implementation and research progress, discuss challenges, and support the sustainability and scale of PMC.