Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · Jun 2005
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialEfficacy of combination therapy with artesunate plus amodiaquine compared to monotherapy with chloroquine, amodiaquine or sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine for treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum in Afghanistan.
In South and Central Asia resistance to chloroquine (CQ) has reached unmanageable levels, and resistance to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) is emerging. Amodiaquine (AQ) is widely used in the region, and elsewhere shows only partial resistance to CQ. In Afghanistan, one option for slowing the spread of resistance and improving treatment outcomes is the use of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT). ⋯ The therapeutic and parasitological cure rates with AS/AQ were inadequate, and the criteria for deploying ACT - namely to prevent further selection of drug resistance from a position of low frequency - was not met in the region. An alternative drug combination to AQ/AS is required for Afghanistan.
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · Jun 2005
Season, fever prevalence and pyrogenic threshold for malaria disease definition in an endemic area of Mali.
Modelling malaria parasitaemia as function of fever has been proposed as best alternative to estimate the attributable fraction of malaria fever and the sensitivity and specificity of different case definitions of malaria disease. ⋯ Malaria remains a main cause of fever in this area of Mali. The pyrogenic threshold of parasitaemia depends strongly on the season, and different cut-off levels of parasitaemia should be used during the two seasons to define malaria cases in this area.