New malaria drug cheap, but 'not ideal'
From todays Cape Times:
New malaria drug cheap, but 'not ideal'
April 26, 2004
By Jo-Anne Smetherham
A new malaria drug, expected to cost under one US dollar for a course of treatment, could be available to African governments in two years.
The artemisinin-combination drug might offer fresh hope to the many African countries with rising malaria death tolls.
The World Health Organisation (Who), non-profit foundation Medicines for Malaria Venture and GlaxoSmithKline have announced a joint effort to develop the drug, which will contain chlorproguanil, dapsone and artesunate (CDA).
"The flavour of the decade is artemisinin-combination therapy," said medical director of the Netcare Travel Clinic, Stephen Toovey. It is intended for "resource-poor settings. It is not going to be an ideal drug, but we don't have the ideal".
Malaria is reported to have killed more people than all the wars in history. Every day almost 3 000 people, most of them children, die of the disease.
Who estimates there are at least 300 million malaria cases in the world every year, 90% of them in Africa.
CDA will cost around one-third of artemether-lumefantrine, a drug much-hailed for its high cure rates in SA.
Artemisinin alone kills malaria parasites more quickly than other drugs but must be taken for seven days, so many patients don't finish the course. Artemisinin-combination drugs must be taken for about three days. Other more expensive artemisinin combinations are available but "nobody knows which is best", said Toovey who said that the disadvantage of the new drug is that it causes anaemia in children.