Drug cocktail floors malaria

Even malaria can’t resist a drug cocktail. A new study led by researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) has found that a combination of anti-malarial drugs administered intermittently over a 12 month period can reduce malaria infections in infants by up to 30 per cent, and doesn’t hinder the development of natural immunity.

The study was conducted with researchers from the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR) and the University of Melbourne was conducted over three years in Papua New Guinea.

The trial used a regime called intermittent preventative treatment (IPT), which involved short courses of combined anti-malarial drugs issued to infants aged three to 15 months, treated at three month intervals.

According to Professor Ivo Mueller from WEHI, the most effective drug combination in the trial was the long-lasting antimalarials sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine and amodiaquine (SP-AQ), which act against the two most lethal species of malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax.

In the trial, SP-AQ treatment decreased infant infections by 35 per cent for P. falciparum and 23 per cent for P. vivax.

“IPT is a cheap and easy way to decrease the burden of malaria in those most susceptible to clinical illness, such as young infants and pregnant women,” Professor Mueller said in a statement.

“These are quite remarkable figures,” Mueller said. ”Different treatment strategies are required for different regions, depending on the dynamics of disease.

“The drug combination that was most effective in PNG was very different to the drugs you would use to treat malaria in Africa and also different to the drugs currently recommended for treating malaria in PNG.”

Professor Peter Siba, director of PNGIMR, said in a statement that a key factor in the effectiveness of the treatment was running it in parallel with existing vaccination and healthcare programs.

“In the trials, IPT was given at the same time as regular vaccinations and check-ups, using existing health care frameworks to deliver the treatment, so we saw a much higher adherence than with continuous treatment regimes,” he said.

“IPT is also preferable to long-term, continued use of antimalarial drugs, as it allows some natural immunity to develop while decreasing the number and severity of malaria infections.”