A leap towards curing malaria
Malaria is a life-threatening disease that is caused by parasites transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitos.
The Tubingen Institute of Tropical Medicine and the German company Deutschen Malaria GmbH have tested the effectiveness and safety of the drug combination of Fosmidomycin and Piperaquine. There research was published in the journal of Clinical Infectious Disease.
This drug combination was administered for 3 days to patients within the age group of 1–30. Patients were infected with malaria via the Plasmodium falciparum pathogen. In the 83 cases 100% of patients was cured.
This treatment was tolerated well by patients and led to quick reduction of symptoms.
Fosmidomycin was initially extracted from Streptomyces lavendulae but today can be synthetically manufactured. The medication blocks a metabolic pathway for the production of isoprenoids which does not allow the malaria pathogen to either metabolize or reproduce.
Right now, Nigeria has the highest number of malaria cases (about 51 million). Within these cases, 207,000 deaths have been reported annually. Additionally, about 97% of the total population is at risk of infection.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that one of the challenges faced globally when fighting malaria is the resistance of malaria parasites to recommended drugs. Therefore, in 2011, WHO prohibited the prescription and use of Artemisinin mono-therapies and other less effective medications such as Chloroquine to prevent the incidence of drug resistance.
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Questions: What are your thought of this new combination therapies? Are you comfortable recommending to initiate this therapy in countries infected with malaria?
