Atovaquone and proguanil versus amodiaquine for the treatment of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in African infants and young children.

Malaria-related morbidity and mortality are greatest among young children in areas with high malaria transmission intensity. An open-label, randomized study was done to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the combination of atovaquone and proguanil formulated as pediatric-strength tablets (20 and 8 mg/kg of body weight, respectively, administered once daily for 3 days), compared with amodiaquine (10 mg/kg of body weight, once daily for 3 days), among children weighing > or =5 and <11 kg in Gabon. Two hundred patients aged 3-43 months were recruited.

Age-dependent enhancement of IFN-gamma responses to Plasmodium falciparum liver stage antigen-1 T cell epitopes.

We assessed the cellular immunological responses to two Plasmodium falciparum liver-stage antigen (LSA)-1-derived T-cell epitopes in healthy Gabonese children and adults. The N-terminal peptide, designated T1, induced interferon (IFN)-gamma production in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from a significantly lower proportion of children compared to adults, but both interleukin (IL)-10 and IL-12 were produced by similar proportions of PBMC from the two groups. The LSA-1 junction region peptide (LSA-J) also induced IFN-gamma in a lower, but in this case statistically non-significant, proportion of PBMC from children compared to adults, whilst the proportions producing either IL-10 or IL-12 were again similar.