PLoS medicine
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Between 1995 and 2000, KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, experienced a marked increase in Plasmodium falciparum malaria, fuelled by pyrethroid and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine resistance. In response, vector control was strengthened and artemether-lumefantrine (AL) was deployed in the first Ministry of Health artemisinin-based combination treatment policy in Africa. In South Africa, effective vector and parasite control had historically ensured low-intensity malaria transmission. Malaria is diagnosed definitively and treatment is provided free of charge in reasonably accessible public-sector health-care facilities. ⋯ Together with concurrent strengthening of vector control measures, the antimalarial treatment policy change to AL in KwaZulu-Natal contributed to a marked and sustained decrease in malaria cases, admissions, and deaths, by greatly improving clinical and parasitological cure rates and reducing gametocyte carriage.
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Registration of clinical trials is an essential step in ensuring that data from all trials are reported. However, there are differing opinions on what registration should include.
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The prose reporting of trial information could be powerfully augmented by a computable repository of trial information-a global "trial bank."
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Controlling seven tropical infections in Africa would cost just 40 cents per person per year, and would permanently benefit hundreds of millions of people.