Laurent Nkera

Iyikirenga

Chief of Party, PMI Evolve Project, Sierra Leone

Laurent Nkera Iyikirenga is a biologist, medical entomologist, teacher, and public health professional with 24 years of experience working in vector control. He has contributed to large-scale projects that include increasing national capacities to collect, analyze, and use entomological data to inform malaria prevention and control programs. He has worked with malaria-control authorities in Rwanda, Burundi, Benin, and Sierra Leone.

Iyikirenga currently serves as the chief of party (COP) for the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative Evolving Vector Control to Fight Malaria Project (PMI Evolve) in Sierra Leone. He supports the country’s National Malaria Control Program’s (NMCP) efforts to strengthen its entomological capacity and implementation of indoor residual spray (IRS) campaigns in two districts, Bo and Bombali. In 2023, his team conducted vector bionomics monitoring at routine sentinel sites in five districts and trained the locally based entomology partner, Njala University, on how to conduct molecular entomology analysis, establishing in-country capacity for this important work.

Before PMI Evolve, Iyikirenga served as the COP for the Abt-led PMI VectorLink Project in Benin, which worked with the Ministry of Health, NMCP, and partners to conduct annual IRS campaigns in three departments in Donga, Alibori, and Atacora from 2018-2021.

Prior to Abt, Iyikirenga served in higher education as head of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in Rwanda, where he helped build national capacity in environmental health. As head of the department, he conducted assessments of the environmental health in primary schools, prisons, and resettlement areas, with a focus on sanitation and gender issues. His work experience also includes leading the Department of Hygiene, Sanitation, and Vector Control at the Ministry of Health. He coordinated the preparation and the implementation of malaria vector control strategies and malaria epidemic preparedness and responses. He also led the Division of Research Promotion at the Rwanda Ministry of Education and took part in the development of primary, secondary, and university curricula and textbooks.

Expertise:

Malaria vectors surveillance
Integrated disease vector management
Operational research on endemic vector-borne diseases
Health policy development
Development of teaching curricula
Project management

Key Projects:

PMI Evolve Project
PMI VectorLink Project
Africa Indoor Residual Spraying, USAID

Publications:

Ngufor C, Govoetchan R, Fongnikin A, … Iyikirenga L, et al. Community evaluation of VECTRON™ T500, a broflanilide insecticide, for indoor residual spraying for malaria vector control in central Benin; a two-arm non‑inferiority cluster randomized trial. Sci Rep. 2023 Oct. 19; 13(1):17852. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-45047-w. PMID: 37857762; PMCID: PMC10587144.
Sominahouin A, Padonou G, Salako A, … Iyikirenga L, et al. Seasonal implications of malaria and their correlations with meteorological parameters in the districts of indoor residual spray extension in north Benin, West Africa. International Journal of Zoology Studies, Volume 3, Issue 5, 2018, Pages 40-48.
Aïkpon RY, Padonou G, Dagnon F, … Iyikirenga L, et al. Upsurge of malaria transmission after indoor residual spraying withdrawal in Atacora region in Benin, West Africa. Malar J. 2020 Jan 3;19(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s12936-019-3086-2. PMID: 31900182; PMCID: PMC6942255.
Salako A.S., Ahogni I, Kpanou C, … Iyikirenga L, et al. Baseline entomologic data on malaria transmission in prelude to an indoor residual spraying intervention in the regions of Alibori and Donga, Northern Benin, West Africa. Malar J. 2018 17, 392 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-018-2507-y
Salako A, Ahogni I, Aïkpon R, … Iyikirenga L, et al. Insecticide resistance status, expression of the Kdr L1014F and G119S Ace-1 mutations and of expression of detuxification enzymes in Anopheles gambiae s.l. in two regions of northern Benin in preparation for an implementation of Indoor Residual Spraying. Parasites & Vectors 2018. 11:618