Dr Paul Sondo, a recipient of TDR’s Clinical Research and Development Fellowship, believes that malnutrition could have an important negative impact on the effectiveness of malaria prevention efforts and is exploring this hypothesis under a €147 500 grant recently awarded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP).
Burkina Faso is a land-locked Sahelian country in West Africa where over a thousand people die each year from malaria. Despite implementation of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) to address this, malaria-associated mortality among young children remains worryingly high.
If Sondo’s hypothesis that malnutrition has a negative impact on SMC effectiveness is correct, his research would serve as a pilot showing the value of this new approach to malaria prevention and would have potential impact for all Sahelian countries with similar malaria epidemiology.
“This project is very important as it tackles two major problems - malaria and malnutrition,” says Sondo, adding “this is particularly interesting for me as I know the realities of living standards in rural areas of Burkina Faso.”
Sondo received this grant on re-entry to his home institution, the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro, (CRUN), following his CRDF. “Being awarded this grant was a wonderful opportunity for me to apply the skills gained from the CRDF in the field,” he says.
The project (known as the SMC-NUT project) will specifically explore if a combined strategy of SMC with a daily oral nutrient supplement (either Vitamin A-Zinc or “Plumpy’Doz®”, a fortified peanut butter-like paste) will enhance the immune response in children aged 3-59 months. Nutritional status will also be measured using mid-upper arm circumference gain and weight.
From the village to the city
Now a successful scientist respected for his expertise in malaria, it’s hard to imagine that just prior to undertaking his master’s degree, Sondo had never switched on a computer. “I’d never touched one before,” he says, adding “I’m now unable to spend a day without my computer! It was a steep learning curve, but I enjoyed taking on the challenge.”
Sondo grew up in modest circumstances in a village called Nanoro in central western Burkina Faso. A devout Catholic, he had wanted to be a priest when he grew up.
At the age of 17, Sondo left his village and parents to attend secondary school in Koudougou. “The shift from the village to the city greatly impacted my life…my previous ambition of becoming a reverend father ended there,” he says. He was fortunate to have had a benefactor, Sigle Maria Russo, “my grandmother from Italy” who supported his school fees from primary school through university.
Sondo went on to graduate in microbiology. His interest in malaria was sparked by his mentor, Professor Halidou Tinto, who directed him towards the topic for his master’s degree. “Because of its public health relevance, I wanted to contribute a ‘stone’ in ‘building the wall’ against malaria,” says Sondo. It is Professor Tinto who he credits for opening his career to so many opportunities.
“Undertaking a master’s course was just a dream for me, as well as for many other students whose parents are poor.” Fortunately, a nongovernmental organization Res Publica, helped fund his studies.
In 2013 Sondo was recruited to the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS), one of the four research institutes of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique (CNRST) in Burkina Faso. He subsequently completed his PhD in medical parasitology at the Nazi Boni University, and was promoted to Associate Researcher by the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education.
To Oxford and the Worldwide Antimalarials Resistance Network (WWARN)
Sondo undertook his CRDF in 2017–2018. With support from his home institution, he was placed at the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Philippe Guérin. There, he had the opportunity to work on projects such as the WWARN toolkit on malaria, which aims to support researchers in designing, executing, analysing and reporting malaria clinical trials.
“I was lucky to have Professor Guérin as a supervisor. We continue to have an interesting and fruitful relationship. WWARN was a wonderful working place; the team spirit, the availability of support and willingness to help each other were some of the things I enjoyed the most. I remain in touch with many fellows such as Sharif Hussain from Bangladesh and Cherif Sama from Guinea.”
Asked how his career path has changed following the fellowship, Sondo replies: “First of all, the CRDF offered a collaborative opportunity and I learned a lot and gained many useful skills for my career. But the contacts made have helped open the doors to other opportunities. For instance, my most recent grant came about because the call was forwarded to me by Professor Guérin, and we discussed it together. TDR’s Research Capacity Strengthening unit also continues to help us fellows by informing us about grants and training opportunities.”
The road ahead
TDR’s CRDF re-integration plan allowed Sondo to develop his research focus on malnutrition that could negatively affect the effectiveness of SMC. He also received a research grant from EDTCP for career development in 2018 and a Young Investigator Award from The Institut Mérieux the same year.
Some of the project outputs from SMC-NUT have already been presented at the EDCTP Forum and the Congress of the African Society of Parasitology. A new CRUN station was opened in the town of Soaw under this grant and Sondo was appointed there to implement the project. The grant has also offered training opportunities to young investigators and two master’s students have been trained under Sondo’s supervision. In 2021, Sondo was promoted to the post of Research Master by the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES).
On a personal level, Sondo maintains a willingness to learn and a desire to help. Now married and a father of two, his advice to young people is to retain humility and respect for seniors. He himself is grateful for the opportunities and mentorship that he has had. Aside from those already mentioned, “other people have also helped to shape my career and I remain grateful to them all.”
TDR’s Clinical Research and Development Fellowship (CRDF) allows early- to mid-career researchers in low- and middle-income countries to learn how to conduct clinical trials. Successful applicants are placed for 12 months in host training organizations (pharmaceutical companies, including members of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, product development partnerships, or research organizations) and then receive a reintegration grant for 12 months at their home institution. The fellowship is implemented by TDR, the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. The fellowship is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
For more information on the CRDF, please contact Dr Pascal Launois.