The study indicated high efficacy of AL and the safety profile was consistent with previous reports.
Our findings suggest that revised AL dosing regimens for young children and pregnant women would improve drug exposure but would require longer or more complex schedules.
Antimalarial interventions have yielded a significant decline in malaria prevalence in The Gambia, where artemether-lumefantrine (AL) has been used as a first-line antimalarial for a decade.
High treatment failure rates for Plasmodium falciparum malaria have been reported in Colombia for chloroquine, amodiaquine, and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine.
Both treatments achieved the WHO recommended efficacy for antimalarials about to be adopted as policy.
Background
Artemether-lumefantrine (AL) was introduced for treatment of uncomplicated malaria in Guinea-Bissau in 2008. Malaria then resurged and recurrent malaria after treatment with AL and stock-outs of AL were common. This study therefore aimed to assess the efficacy of AL and identify an alternative second line antimalarial. Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DP) was chosen as it has been shown to be safe and efficacious and to reduce the incidence of recurrent malaria.
This study shows an increase in the prevalence of childhood plasmodial infection in Gabon according to the low socio-economic level, and a high frequency of markers associated with AL treatment failure.
As evidenced by the day 28 PCR-corrected cumulative success rates, both AL and ASAQ remain efficacious treatments for uncomplicated malaria in Malawi.
AS + SP remains the effective drug for uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Yemen.
This first randomized study in Brazzaville confirmed the excellent efficacy of these co-formulated anti-malarial drugs in children.
These results suggest that relapses cause approximately four of every five P. vivax infections and at least three of every five P. ovale infections in PNG children and are important in sustaining transmission.
