VATIS UPDATE Article

A new drug developed by researchers at Tulane University, the United States, is effective in treating non-severe cases of malaria. This comes as a significant development as public health experts warn that Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for most malaria cases, is developing resistance to widely used treatments. New medications are needed to build up secondary defenses against drug-resistant strains of the parasite.

The new drug, called AQ-13, was able to clear the parasite responsible for the disease within a week, matching the effectiveness of the most widely used treatment regimen. “The results of the clinical trial, which was supervised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are extraordinarily encouraging,” said Dr. Donald Krogstad, at Tulane University. Researchers recruited 66 adult men in Mali with uncomplicated malaria, which is defined as malaria that isn’t life threatening.

Half were treated with AQ-13 and the other half received artemether and lumefantrine. Both drug groups had similar cure rates. However, 5 participants in AQ-13 group left the study or were lost to follow-up and 2 participants in the artemether/lumefantrine group had late treatment failures with recurrence of their original infections. Researchers hope to expand testing of the drug to more participants, including women and children, before it can be widely recommended as a new treatment.