New drug for worldwide malaria treatment

[Gert van der Hoek]

New drug for worldwide malaria treatment

ANI, Nov 7, 2010,

The largest clinical trial ever conducted has concluded that the drug artesunate should now be the preferred treatment for the disease in both children and adults everywhere in the world.

Professor Nick White of the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme in Bangkok, Thailand, and his colleagues conducted the trial called African Quinine v. Artesunate Malaria Trial (AQUAMAT).

Artesunate is derived from a Chinese herb called qinghao (Artemisia annua).

AQUAMAT found that treatment with artesunate reduced the number of deaths from severe malaria by 22.5 per cent compared with quinine. With artesunate treatment 8.5 per cent of the patients died, compared to 10.9 per cent with quinine.

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thanks to http://twitter.com/MalariaWorld

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: New drug for worldwide malaria treatment

Ministry of Health in Kenya says: new drug is too expensive to use at large scale.


Kenya: New Drug 'Holds Key to Winning Malaria War'

Mark Agutu 8 November 2010


Nairobi ? Kenya's fight against malaria has received a boost after medical researchers recommended that a wonder drug that has produced positive results in Asia be embraced globally.

Results of the largest global clinical trial in patients with severe malaria have shown that the drug, artesunate, should now be the preferred treatment for the disease in both children and adults worldwide instead of the centuries-old quinine.

The move is likely to usher in far-reaching changes that will involve a re-evaluation of malaria treatment guidelines in the country's and World Health Organisation's policies on control and management of the disease, which has remained one of the world's leading killers.

Kenya's health sector is upbeat over the findings that offer hope to millions of people in malaria-prone areas.

The study, whose findings are published in the latest online edition of The Lancet journal, was funded by the Wellcome Trust. It involved an international consortium of researchers, led by Prof Nick White of the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme in Bangkok, Thailand.

Professors Kathryn Maitland, Kevin Marsh and Charles Newton, all based at the Kenya Medical Research Institute's Kilifi station, were part of the team that compared treatment with artesunate, used in Asia to treat severe malaria, against quinine.

The study -- the African Quinine v. Artesunate Malaria Trial (Aquamat) -- was carried out over a five-year period at hospitals across nine African countries, including Kenya, and studied 5,425 children with severe malaria, which kills nearly a million people each year, mainly young children and pregnant women.

It is caused by parasites that are injected into the bloodstream by infected mosquitoes. Severe malaria is often the main reason why children are admitted to hospital in sub-Saharan Africa, and one in 10 of these children die.

Quinine is a reliably effective drug, but it is difficult to give by injection and has unpleasant side effects, some of which are potentially dangerous.

Results of the Aquamat study showed that treatment with artesunate reduced the number of deaths from severe malaria by 22.5 per cent.

Responding to the findings, the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, through the head of the Division of Malaria Control, Dr Elizabeth Juma, said: "The Division of Malaria Control is happy about the results of trials comparing artesunate with quinine for severe malaria in children."

She added: "The current malaria treatment guidelines recommend the use of IV artesunate for the treatment of severe malaria in adults and from 2009, the division has provided IV artesunate, job aids and guidelines on its use, but on a limited scale due to the current relative high cost of the product."

Allafrica

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: New drug for worldwide malaria treatment

Link to report / trial:


Artesunate versus quinine in the treatment of severe falciparum malaria in African children (AQUAMAT): an open-label, randomised trial

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