OBJECTIVE New anti-malarial regimens are urgently needed in sub-Saharan Africa because of the increase in drug resistance. We investigated the safety and efficacy of azithromycin or artesunate combined with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine used for treatment of malaria in pregnant women in Blantyre, Malawi. METHODS/FINDINGS This was a randomized open-label clinical trial, conducted at two rural heal...

The simian parasite Plasmodium knowlesi causes severe human malaria; the optimal treatment remains unknown. We describe the clinical features, disease spectrum, and response to antimalarial chemotherapy, including artemether-lumefantrine and artesunate, in patients with P. knowlesi malaria diagnosed by PCR during December 2007-November 2009 at a tertiary care hospital in Sabah, Malaysia. Fifty-...

A four compartment mechanistic mathematical model is developed for the pharmacokinetics of the commonly used anti-malarial drug artesunate and its principle metabolite dihydroartemisinin following oral administration of artesunate. The model is structurally unidentifiable unless additional constraints are imposed. Combinations of mechanistically derived constraints are considered to assess thei...

Andrographolide (AND), the diterpene lactone compound, was purified by HPLC from the methanolic fraction of the plant Andrographis paniculata. The compound was found to have potent antiplasmodial activity when tested in isolation and in combination with curcumin and artesunate against the erythrocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro and Plasmodium berghei ANKA in vivo. IC(50)s for arte...

OBJECTIVE To assess the prevalence of counterfeit antimalarial drugs in Southeast (SE) Asia. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey. SETTING Pharmacies and shops selling antimalarial drugs in Myanmar (Burma), Lao PDR, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Proportion of artemisinin derivatives or mefloquine containing drugs of substandard quality. RESULTS Of the 188 tablet packs p...

Artesunate, a semi-synthetic and water-soluble artemisinin-derivative used as an anti-malarial agent, has attracted the attention of cancer researchers due to a broad range of anti-cancer activity including anti-angiogenic, immunomodulatory and treatment-sensitisation effects. In addition to pre-clinical evidence in a range of cancers, a recently completed randomised blinded trial in colorectal...

This study was carried out to investigate the cardiovascular effect of administration of antimalarial drugs amodiaquine and artesunate and the efficacy of Garcinia kola extract (kolaviron) in protecting against such possible effect. Thirty (30) adult male albino rats divided into six (6) groups were used in this study. Groups D, E and F were treated with 100 mg/Kg b. w. of the extract twice dai...

The pharmacokinetic properties of oral and intravenous artesunate (2 mg/kg of body weight) were studied in 19 adult patients with acute uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria by using a randomized crossover design. A sensitive bioassay was used to measure the antimalarial activity in plasma which results from artesunate and its principal metabolite, dihydroartemisinin. The oral study was r...

The host immune response contributes to the onset and progression of severe malaria syndromes, such as cerebral malaria. Adjunctive immunomodulatory strategies for severe malaria may improve clinical outcome beyond that achievable with artemisinin-based therapy alone. Here, we report that prophylaxis with inhaled nitric oxide significantly reduced systemic inflammation (lower TNF, IFNγ and MCP-...

This review summarizes progress in treating severe and complicated malaria, which are global problems, claiming at least one million lives annually, and have been accompanied by advances in our understanding of the pathogenesis of severe malaria complications. New drugs such as intravenous artesunate (AS) and intramuscular artemether (AM) are improving outcomes and decreasing malaria deaths. Tr...