Parasite
August 2023
Malaria is a major public health problem in Madagascar, particularly in coastal areas. We conducted a randomized, controlled, parallel-group study of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) in Mananjary and Farafangana, two localities on the rainy south-east coast of Madagascar, from March to September 2018. The efficacy and safety of artesunate + amodiaquine (ASAQ) and artemether + lumefantrine (AL) were assessed according to the WHO protocol with a 28-day follow-up.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends combinations of an artemisinin derivative plus an anti-malarial drug of longer half-life as treatment options for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum infections. In Africa, artesunate-mefloquine (ASMQ) is an infrequently used artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) because of perceived poor tolerance to mefloquine. However, the WHO has recommended reconsideration of the use of ASMQ in Africa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: WHO recommends combinations of an artemisinin derivative plus an antimalarial drug of longer half-life as treatment options for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum infection. In Africa, artemether-lumefantrine is the most widely used artemisinin-based combination therapy, whereas artesunate-mefloquine is used infrequently because of a perceived poor tolerance to mefloquine. WHO recommends reconsideration of the use of artesunate-mefloquine in Africa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) data are limited for artesunate (AS) and amodiaquine (AQ) in uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum.
Methods: From 2007-8, 54 P. falciparum-infected, Kenyan adults were assigned randomly fixed dose (FD) ASAQ (n = 26) or non-fixed (NF) ASAQ (n = 28).
Background: Prospective efficacy monitoring of anti-malarial treatments is imperative for timely detection of resistance development. The in vivo efficacy of artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ) fixed-dose combination (FDC) was compared to that of artemether-lumefantrine (AL) among children aged six to 59 months in Nimba County, Liberia, where Plasmodium falciparum malaria is endemic and efficacy data are scarce.
Methods: An open-label, randomized controlled non-inferiority trial compared the genotyping adjusted day 42 cure rates of ASAQ FDC (ASAQ Winthrop®) to AL (Coartem®) in 300 children aged six to 59 months with uncomplicated falciparum malaria.
Background: Safety surveillance of widely used artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is essential, but tolerability data in the over five years age group are largely anecdotal.
Methods: Two open-label, randomized trials were conducted in Nimba County, Liberia: i) the main tolerability trial with 1,000 Plasmodium falciparum malaria patients aged over five years (Study-T), and, ii) an efficacy trial with a secondary objective of collecting tolerability data among 300 children age six to 59 months (Study-E). In both studies patients were randomized to fixed-dose artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ Winthrop®) or artemether-lumefantrine (AL, Coartem®), respectively.
Amodiaquine (AQ) is an antimalarial drug that was frequently combined with artesunate (AS) for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum and is now available as a fixed-dose combination. Despite its widespread use, the simultaneous pharmacokinetics in patients of AQ and its active metabolite, desethylamodiaquine (DAQ), were not characterized to date. The pharmacokinetics of AQ and DAQ in 54 adult patients receiving the AS/AQ combination were therefore investigated by the use of a population approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: ADO2 is an uncommon sclerosing bone disorder with incomplete penetrance and variable expressivity. Positional candidate studies were performed to identify the gene responsible for ADO2. In 11 of 12 kindreds, five different missense mutations were identified in the ClCN7 gene, indicating the genetic basis and possible dominant negative mechanism for ADO2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA major determinant of the risk of osteoporosis is peak bone mineral density (BMD), which has been shown to have substantial heritability. The genes for 3 BMD-related phenotypes (autosomal dominant high bone mass, autosomal recessive osteoporosis-pseudoglioma, and autosomal recessives osteopetrosis) are all in the chromosome 11q12-13 region. We reported linkage of peak BMD in a large sample of healthy premenopausal sister pairs to this same chromosomal region, suggesting that the genes underlying these 3 disorders may also play a role in determining peak BMD within the normal population.
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