New drug may prevent malaria in pregnant women

Researchers at LSTM, working with colleagues of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Kenya and USA, and from the Kenya Medical Research Institution have found that a new drug may be more effective at preventing malaria in pregnant woman, especially where there is resistance to the current treatments.

LSTM's Professor Feiko ter Kuile, who heads the Malaria in Pregnancy (MiP) Consortium, was senior author on the study which has been published today in the journal The Lancet. The study evaluated the efficacy and safety of two alternative strategies in comparison to the standard treatment recommended for the prevention of malaria in 1546 HIV-negative pregnant women in western Kenya.

Malaria infection during pregnancy is a significant health problem to both the mother and the unborn child. It has been associated with chronic anaemia in the mother, and with loss of the pregnancy due to miscarriages or stillbirths and with low birth weight in pregnancies that result in livebirths, which in turn results in an increased risk of infant death. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends that women in areas of stable malaria transmission receive intermittent preventative treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) with the antimalarial drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is currently the only antimalarial drug that is recommended by WHO for this IPTp strategy, however high levels of resistance from the malaria parasite to this drug threatens its efficacy.

New drug may prevent malaria in pregnant women

Viagra to prevent transmission of the malaria parasite?

By increasing the stiffness of erythrocytes infected by the causal agent of malaria, Viagra favors their elimination from the blood circulation and may therefore reduce transmission of the parasite from humans to mosquitoes. This astonishing discovery, made by scientists from the CNRS, INSERM, Université Paris Descartes -- at the Institut Cochin -- and the Institut Pasteur, working in collaboration with a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, could lead to a treatment to reduce the spread of malaria within a population. Their work is published in PLOS Pathogens on 7 May 2015.

More : http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1004815



Viagra to prevent transmission of the malaria parasite? 

New malaria drug Artesunate, can save millions of lives....

A landmark trial (AQUAMAT trial) showed that the replacement of the standard malaria drug Quinine with the newer drug Artesunate (Artesunate contains artemisinin, which was discovered by a Chinese researcher in 1972 in a project to follow up advice found in ancient Chinese medicine : see structure) for children with severe malaria could save 100,000 lives a year. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended that artesunate derived from a Chinese plant called sweet wormwood, replace the four-century-old remedy of quinine for treating severe malaria in adults in 2006. Similar recommendations were not made for children with further trial results pending.

The trial shows that using artesunate reduced death from severe falciparum malaria among African children by 22.5 per cent compared to quinine. The trial spanned over nine African countries, in which 5,425 badly-infected children aged under 15 were given either artesunate or quinine. There were 230 deaths (8.5 percent) in the artesunate group and 297 deaths (11 percent) in the quinine group, the study authors reported. Artesunate was better tolerated than quinine. There was a lower risk of coma or convulsion or serious dropping of blood sugar as occurred with quinine. Hope this trial (a change in treatment policy from quinine to artesunate) will lead to a solution for severe malaria (most common admission diagnosis in febrile children) and can save thousands of children's lives…...

Ref : http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961924-1/fulltext

Gene Behind Malaria-resistant Mosquitoes Identified

The mosquitoes can also be our allies in the fight against this common foe malaria. This article is interesting because of its basis i.e., malaria parasites must spend part of their lives inside mosquitoes and another part inside humans, so by learning how mosquitoes resist malaria, we may find new tools for controlling its transmission to humans in endemic areas.....

Gene Behind Malaria-resistant Mosquitoes Identified

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