Researchers have found long-awaited proof that a drug derived from a Chinese plant fights severe malaria far more effectively than older treatments do — but this breakthrough may not help children in Africa, where severe malaria progresses differently than it does in Asia.
A team at Thailand’s Mahidol University studied nearly 1 500 malaria patients in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Myanmar, and showed that the drug — artesunate — saved one-third more lives than the usual quinine did.
The researchers, whose findings were published in the latest edition of the British-based medical journal The Lancet, say this means artesunate should soon be available wherever malaria is a major problem.
The Thai team says it has provided the evidence needed to warrant using artesunate in adults worldwide. But it notes that the same findings might not apply to children in Africa, in whom severe malaria develops in a different way.
There is progress, however. Other scientists have just begun a similar trial. The Thai team, led by tropical medicine Professor Nick White, says this other trial should offer more answers about how to deal with severe malaria in Africa, where the disease kills one child every 30 seconds.
Artesunate belongs to a class of drugs called artemisinins, derived from a shrub called sweet wormwood. In 2001, the World Health Organisation recommended using drugs containing artemisinins to treat ”uncomplicated” malaria caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite. But no one had proved the benefit of artemisinins for treating other forms of malaria.
One to two percent of infected people go on to develop severe malaria, which can kill one in three even after receiving existing treatments. Several research groups had tested an artemisinin derivative called arthemeter, but this seemed to be no better than quinine.
Researchers’ attention then switched to artesunate, another type of artemisinin, when early tests suggested it could be effective against severe malaria. — SciDev.Net