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Vector TransmissionNCT04149119

Attractive Targeted Sugar Bait Trial in Mali

A study testing Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSB) in people with Vector Transmission, run by University Clinical Research Center, Mali at 1 site in Mali.

Completed

Finished. The study has ended and is not enrolling. Results may be posted on the official record.

Official record
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Trial summary

Globally, the female mosquitoes to be effective at transmitting malaria parasites, must have a number of characteristics including: abundance, longevity (individual mosquitoes must survive long enough after feeding on infected blood to allow the parasite time to develop and travel to the mosquito's salivary glands)… Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 5 to 14 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
Conditions the study is for
Vector Transmission
What is being tested?
Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSB)
Type of treatment
Medical device
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
6,068 participants
Where
1 siteMali
Study dates
6 Jun 2022to 7 Feb 2024
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
None posted in the registry

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 5 to 14 years
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Child

Who may be able to join

  • . Household resident of the selected villages
  • Aged 5 to 14 years of age at the time of enrollment
  • All parents or guardians provide consent for their child's participant (5-14 years old)
  • If age 12 - 14 years, the child also provides assent for participation
  • Absence of pregnancy

Who cannot join

  • Not resident of any household within the selected villages
  • Children below 5 years old
  • Aged 15 years and older
  • Pregnancy
  • Do not consent or assent (14 years old)

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

Mali1 site
  • University Clinical Research Center

    Bamako, Mali, 5445

Other trials in Mali

About this study

Official title: Attractive Targeted Sugar Bait Phase III Trial in Mali

Globally, the female mosquitoes to be effective at transmitting malaria parasites, must have a number of characteristics including: abundance, longevity (individual mosquitoes must survive long enough after feeding on infected blood to allow the parasite time to develop and travel to the mosquito's salivary glands), capacity (each female mosquito must be both susceptible to infection with Plasmodium and able to carry enough malaria parasites in the salivary glands), contact with humans (frequently feed on humans).

Vectors in SSA are often anthropophagic and anthropophilic, and exhibit indoor biting and indoor resting behavior. Highly effective interventions against vectors have been developed and implemented at scale (e.g., indoor Residual Spraying of Insecticides [IRS] and Long Lasting Insecticide-treated Nets [LLINs]). While these interventions have contributed importantly to the reduction of malaria transmission and disease (68% and 11% respectively), none of them target outdoor-biting g and outdoor-resting mosquitoes. Given the increase in resistance to current generation of insecticides and the behavioral plasticity of vectors that results in continued malaria transmission despite high coverage of LLINs or IRS, there is a need for interventions that can supplement and complement LLINs and IRS by killing mosquitoes outside houses using other biologic mechanisms (e.g., targeting sugar feeding behavior). Finally, insecticides with novel modes of action that may be capable of restoring sensitivity to pyrethroids by killing both pyrethroid resistant and sensitive mosquitoes are required. Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSBs) that kill mosquitoes through the ingestion of the toxicant dinotefuran (and possibly by other ingestion toxicants that are effective when ingested) potentially fill the need for outdoor interventions with novel killing effects. This study aims to establish the efficacy and contribution of the ATSBs for controlling malaria transmission where An. gambiae s.l. and An. Funestus are the major vectors for malaria.

Read the detailed description

The current dominant malaria vector control tools remain critically important and have saved many lives. Yet, they are not well-suited for malaria vectors that avoid contact with indoor insecticides by predominantly biting outdoors, by frequently biting animals, and by resting outdoors or remaining within houses only briefly when they do enter. These behaviors allow residual populations of vector mosquitoes to survive, expand, and to increasingly contribute to malaria transmission, despite high coverage. These vectors can sustain endemic transmission even if they rarely bite humans. An. arabiensis is a particularly important source of persistent residual transmission despite Long Lasting Insecticide-treated Net (LLIN) scale-up; this mosquito prefers to feed on animals, and, often bites and rests outside, and has limited indoor exposure. There is need for new vector control tools to target residual outdoor transmission.

In addition to the biological need for female Anopheles species to take a blood meal to obtain protein necessary for egg production, all Anopheles must feed regularly and frequently on liquid and carbohydrates (sugars) to survive. Common sources of liquid and sugar meals include plant tissue and floral nectar. Mosquitoes are guided to sugar sources by chemical attractants. The Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSBs) is designed specifically to attract the mosquito with a source of liquid and sugar and include an ingestion toxicant to then kill the mosquito. Using sugar sources to attract mosquitoes to an ingestion toxicant is a relatively simple and inexpensive, strategy that has been shown to be highly efficacious for mosquito control in a limited number of trials. Limited data suggest efficacy, even in sugar-rich environments, due to the high frequency of sugar feeding.

Early studies examined the effect of spraying ingestion toxicants on attractive flowers to use their scent as bait. While these flowers effectively attract the target mosquitoes, the impact on non-target insects, especially pollinators, can be devastating. Furthermore, this approach is not suitable where there is a lack of flowering vegetation. Subsequent studies evaluated locally available plants and fruits as attractants. While such attractants can be sprayed onto non-flowering green vegetation, further studies evaluated products (bait stations) that could be used across a wide variety of settings including indoors and in areas without suitable vegetation.

Westham Compagny recently developed a bait station that contains a plant-based mosquito attractant, sugar as a feeding stimulant, and an active ingredient (the neonicotinoid, dinotefuran) to kill the foraging vectors. The bait station has a protective membrane that covers and protects the bait from rain and dust, but that allows mosquitoes to feed through it. The Westham ATSB can remain effective in the field for at least six months and has a shelf life of greater than three years with no specific requirements for storage. This Attractive Target Sugar Bait (ATSB) is now being produced at an industrial scale, uses simple and widely available ingredients, and is environmentally friendly. The bait station was designed to have the lowest practicable material content with a high proportion of the mass being fully biodegradable. The protective membrane allows mosquitoes to feed, but it serves as a barrier to pollinators. Field studies to-date have also shown that the ATSB has a minimal impact on non-target organisms. This includes evidence specifically for the toxicant that will be used, dinotefuran. Initial environmental assessment and subsequent field trials in Mali have demonstrated that when deployed within the ATSB, the toxicant does not pose safety risks to non-target organisms, including pollinators and humans.

ATSBs may be a particularly important vector control tool in the context of insecticide resistance. Insecticide resistance for the six insecticide classes currently used in LLINs and IRS threatens malaria prevention efforts. Resistance to pyrethroids (used in LLINs and IRS) is commonly reported. If pyrethroids lose most of their efficacy, more than 55% of the benefits of vector control could be lost. ATSBs can help mitigate insecticide resistance to these contact insecticides because they can use ingestion toxicants from very different chemical classes. There are many existing ingestion toxicants that may be used in a bait station, which could facilitate resistance prevention strategies, such as rotation or combination approaches.

Being tested
Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSB)
Keywords
Malaria, Vector control, ATSB, Transmission, Mali
Medical subject headings
Malaria

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSB)Device

    Within the intervention area, a total of four ATSB station will be deployed (external wall). ATSB stations will be monitored by community health workers through weekly visit and all stations will be replaced 6months after deployment.

Study groups in NCT04149119
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Intervention armExperimentalATSB+LLINs+Standard Care for Malaria case management
Receives: Device: Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSB)
Standard arm or arm 2No interventionLLINs+Standard Care for MalarIA case management

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Malaria incidence per person times

    Malaria case incidence (the total number of incident malaria cases detected by RDT divided by the total person-time followed up in cohorts) will be assessed among people aged 5 to < 15 years old

    Measured: Through study completion (average 2 years

Secondary outcomes (1)
  1. Incidence of malaria per person times using molecular analysis tools

    PCR will be use to assess Incidence of malaria infection among cohort participants aged 5 to <15 years.

    1. Prevalence of malaria infection among a cross sectional sample 3. Incidence rate of passively reported clinical malaria among participants of all ages, defined as the number of malaria confirmed cases (by RDT or microscopy) per 1,000 population per year, 4. Vector age structure: survivorship will be monitored by ovarian dissection to examine ovarian dilatations.
    2. Vector densities, Sporozoite rate by CS ELISA, Entomological inoculation rates (EIR), Biting profiles, Vector species composition.
    3. Durability of the ATSB stations: 1) the effectiveness of the attractant; and 2) the effective toxicity of the ATSB.
    4. Resistance to the ATSB toxicant: susceptibility to the ingestion toxicant (dinotefuran) will be evaluated on an annual basis.
    5. Insecticide resistance: Physiological resistance phenotypes, Intensity of resistance, Behavioral resistance

    Measured: Through study completion (average 2 years

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted4 Nov 2019
  2. Study start6 Jun 2022
  3. Primary completion24 Jan 2024
  4. Study completion7 Feb 2024

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Prevention
Allocation
Randomised
Intervention model
Factorial
Model description
An open-label two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT) design will be used comparing ATSB + LLINS vs LLINS alone (standard of care). A cluster trial design is indicated given the intended community-level effect of ATSBs on malaria transmission. Universal LLIN coverage will be ensured in both arms prior to start of the study and will serve as the standard of care. Arm 1 will receive ATSBs for two years. Arm 2 will receive the standard of care of universal LLIN coverage. The incidence cohorts will be powered to detect a 30% reduction in incidence assuming follow-up over a two year period (see sample size section). Prevalence of infection will be powered to detect a 30% lower prevalence in the treatment arm of of the trial during each of the two post randomisation cross sectional surveys.
Masking
None (open label)
Enrolment
6,068 participants (actual)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT04149119
Sponsor's protocol ID
6719882
Status last verified
Nov 2026
First submitted
1 Oct 2019
Last updated
4 Nov 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
No: The sections below provide details of data management for individual study components. All data will be stored on a secure drive in Mali and shared with PATH. All investigators and the sponsor, Inovated Vector Control Consortium (IVCC), will have access to the data. At London School of Hygien and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), data will be retained for a minimum of 10 years following project completion as mandated by the LSHTM's policies. Data documentation and the labelled dataset will be deposited in the LSHTM data repository (http://datacompass.lshtm.ac.uk/ ) for long-term curation and preservation at the end of the project.

Publications

  • Sinka ME, Bangs MJ, Manguin S, Rubio-Palis Y, Chareonviriyaphap T, Coetzee M, Mbogo CM, Hemingway J, Patil AP, Temperley WH, Gething PW, Kabaria CW, Burkot TR, Harbach RE, Hay SI. A global map of dominant malaria vectors. Parasit Vectors. 2012 Apr 4;5:69. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-5-69.

    PubMed 22475528
  • Bhatt S, Weiss DJ, Cameron E, Bisanzio D, Mappin B, Dalrymple U, Battle K, Moyes CL, Henry A, Eckhoff PA, Wenger EA, Briet O, Penny MA, Smith TA, Bennett A, Yukich J, Eisele TP, Griffin JT, Fergus CA, Lynch M, Lindgren F, Cohen JM, Murray CLJ, Smith DL, Hay SI, Cibulskis RE, Gething PW. The effect of malaria control on Plasmodium falciparum in Africa between 2000 and 2015. Nature. 2015 Oct 8;526(7572):207-211. doi: 10.1038/nature15535. Epub 2015 Sep 16.

    PubMed 26375008
  • Ranson H, Lissenden N. Insecticide Resistance in African Anopheles Mosquitoes: A Worsening Situation that Needs Urgent Action to Maintain Malaria Control. Trends Parasitol. 2016 Mar;32(3):187-196. doi: 10.1016/j.pt.2015.11.010. Epub 2016 Jan 27.

    PubMed 26826784
  • Amek N, Bayoh N, Hamel M, Lindblade KA, Gimnig JE, Odhiambo F, Laserson KF, Slutsker L, Smith T, Vounatsou P. Spatial and temporal dynamics of malaria transmission in rural Western Kenya. Parasit Vectors. 2012 Apr 28;5:86. doi: 10.1186/1756-3305-5-86.

    PubMed 22541138
  • Moiroux N, Damien GB, Egrot M, Djenontin A, Chandre F, Corbel V, Killeen GF, Pennetier C. Human exposure to early morning Anopheles funestus biting behavior and personal protection provided by long-lasting insecticidal nets. PLoS One. 2014 Aug 12;9(8):e104967. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104967. eCollection 2014.

    PubMed 25115830
  • Sougoufara S, Diedhiou SM, Doucoure S, Diagne N, Sembene PM, Harry M, Trape JF, Sokhna C, Ndiath MO. Biting by Anopheles funestus in broad daylight after use of long-lasting insecticidal nets: a new challenge to malaria elimination. Malar J. 2014 Mar 28;13:125. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-13-125.

    PubMed 24678587
  • Huho B, Briet O, Seyoum A, Sikaala C, Bayoh N, Gimnig J, Okumu F, Diallo D, Abdulla S, Smith T, Killeen G. Consistently high estimates for the proportion of human exposure to malaria vector populations occurring indoors in rural Africa. Int J Epidemiol. 2013 Feb;42(1):235-47. doi: 10.1093/ije/dys214. Epub 2013 Feb 9.

    PubMed 23396849
  • Killeen GF. Characterizing, controlling and eliminating residual malaria transmission. Malar J. 2014 Aug 23;13:330. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-13-330.

    PubMed 25149656
  • Killeen GF, Marshall JM, Kiware SS, South AB, Tusting LS, Chaki PP, Govella NJ. Measuring, manipulating and exploiting behaviours of adult mosquitoes to optimise malaria vector control impact. BMJ Glob Health. 2017 Apr 26;2(2):e000212. doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000212. eCollection 2017.

    PubMed 28589023
  • Zhu L, Muller GC, Marshall JM, Arheart KL, Qualls WA, Hlaing WM, Schlein Y, Traore SF, Doumbia S, Beier JC. Is outdoor vector control needed for malaria elimination? An individual-based modelling study. Malar J. 2017 Jul 3;16(1):266. doi: 10.1186/s12936-017-1920-y.

    PubMed 28673298
  • Muller GC and Galili A. (2016). Attractive toxic sugar baits (ATSB): from basic science to product- a new paradigm for vector control. Roll Back Malaria, Vector Control Working Group meeting presentation.

  • Beier JC, Muller GC, Gu W, Arheart KL, Schlein Y. Attractive toxic sugar bait (ATSB) methods decimate populations of Anopheles malaria vectors in arid environments regardless of the local availability of favoured sugar-source blossoms. Malar J. 2012 Feb 1;11:31. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-11-31.

    PubMed 22297155
  • Muller GC, Beier JC, Traore SF, Toure MB, Traore MM, Bah S, Doumbia S, Schlein Y. Field experiments of Anopheles gambiae attraction to local fruits/seedpods and flowering plants in Mali to optimize strategies for malaria vector control in Africa using attractive toxic sugar bait methods. Malar J. 2010 Sep 20;9:262. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-9-262.

    PubMed 20854666
  • Mnzava AP, Knox TB, Temu EA, Trett A, Fornadel C, Hemingway J, Renshaw M. Implementation of the global plan for insecticide resistance management in malaria vectors: progress, challenges and the way forward. Malar J. 2015 Apr 23;14:173. doi: 10.1186/s12936-015-0693-4.

    PubMed 25899397
  • Marshall JM, White MT, Ghani AC, Schlein Y, Muller GC, Beier JC. Quantifying the mosquito's sweet tooth: modelling the effectiveness of attractive toxic sugar baits (ATSB) for malaria vector control. Malar J. 2013 Aug 23;12:291. doi: 10.1186/1475-2875-12-291.

    PubMed 23968494

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Attractive Target Sugar Baits (ATSB) in people with Vector Transmission, run by University Clinical Research Center, Mali at 1 site in Mali.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 5 inclusion and 5 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 4 Nov 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in Mali. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Malaria incidence per person times (time frame: Through study completion (average 2 years). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT04149119, which also lists 20 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 4 Nov 2026.

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