Modelling the Impact of Artemisinin Combination Therapy and Long-Acting Treatments on Malaria Transmission Intensity

Abstract

Background

Artemisinin derivatives used in recently introduced combination therapies (ACTs) for Plasmodium falciparum malaria significantly lower patient infectiousness and have the potential to reduce population-level transmission of the parasite. With the increased interest in malaria elimination, understanding the impact on transmission of ACT and other antimalarial drugs with different pharmacodynamics becomes a key issue. This study estimates the reduction in transmission that may be achieved by introducing different types of treatment for symptomatic P. falciparum malaria in endemic areas.

Methods and Findings

We developed a mathematical model to predict the potential impact on transmission outcomes of introducing ACT as first-line treatment for uncomplicated malaria in six areas of varying transmission intensity in Tanzania. We also estimated the impact that could be achieved by antimalarials with different efficacy, prophylactic time, and gametocytocidal effects. Rates of treatment, asymptomatic infection, and symptomatic infection in the six study areas were estimated using the model together with data from a cross-sectional survey of 5,667 individuals conducted prior to policy change from sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine to ACT. The effects of ACT and other drug types on gametocytaemia and infectiousness to mosquitoes were independently estimated from clinical trial data. Predicted percentage reductions in prevalence of infection and incidence of clinical episodes achieved by ACT were highest in the areas with low initial transmission. A 53% reduction in prevalence of infection was seen if 100% of current treatment was switched to ACT in the area where baseline slide-prevalence of parasitaemia was lowest (3.7%), compared to an 11% reduction in the highest-transmission setting (baseline slide prevalence = 57.1%). Estimated percentage reductions in incidence of clinical episodes were similar. The absolute size of the public health impact, however, was greater in the highest-transmission area, with 54 clinical episodes per 100 persons per year averted compared to five per 100 persons per year in the lowest-transmission area. High coverage was important. Reducing presumptive treatment through improved diagnosis substantially reduced the number of treatment courses required per clinical episode averted in the lower-transmission settings although there was some loss of overall impact on transmission. An efficacious antimalarial regimen with no specific gametocytocidal properties but a long prophylactic time was estimated to be more effective at reducing transmission than a short-acting ACT in the highest-transmission setting.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that ACTs have the potential for transmission reductions approaching those achieved by insecticide-treated nets in lower-transmission settings. ACT partner drugs and nonartemisinin regimens with longer prophylactic times could result in a larger impact in higher-transmission settings, although their long term benefit must be evaluated in relation to the risk of development of parasite resistance.

Abstract

Lucy Okell and colleagues predict the impact on transmission outcomes of ACT as first-line treatment for uncomplicated malaria in six areas of varying transmission intensity in Tanzania.

Editors' Summary

Background.

Plasmodium falciparum, a mosquito-borne parasite that causes malaria, kills nearly one million people every year. When an infected mosquito bites a person, it injects a life stage of the parasite called sporozoites, which invade human liver cells where they initially develop. The liver cells then release merozoites (another life stage of the parasite). These invade red blood cells where they multiply before bursting out and infecting more red blood cells, which can cause fever and damage vital organs. Some merozoites develop into gametocytes, which infect mosquitos when they take a blood meal. In the mosquito, the gametocytes give rise to sporozoites, thus completing the parasite's life cycle. Because malaria parasites are now resistant to many antimalarial drugs, the preferred first-line treatment for P. falciparum malaria in most countries is artemisinin combination therapy (ACT). Artemisinin derivatives are fast-acting antimalarial agents that, unlike previous first-line treatments, reduce the number of gametocytes in patients' blood, making them less infectious to mosquitos, and therefore have more potential to reduce malaria transmission. These compounds are used in combination with another antimalarial drug to reduce the chances of P. falciparum becoming resistant to either drug.

Why Was This Study Done?

Because malaria poses such a large global public-health burden, there is considerable national and international interest in eliminating it or at least minimizing its transmission. Malaria control agencies need to know how to choose between available types of ACT as well as other antimalarials so as to not only cure malaria illness but also prevent transmission as much as possible. The financial resources available to control malaria are limited, so for planning integrated transmission reduction programs it is important for policy makers to know what contribution their treatment policy could make in addition to other control strategies (for example, the provision of insecticide-treated bed nets to reduce mosquito bites) to reducing transmission. Furthermore, in areas with high levels of malaria, it is uncertain to what extent treatment can reduce transmission since many infected people are immune and do not suffer symptoms or seek health care, but continue to transmit to others. In this study, the researchers develop a mathematical model to predict the impact on malaria transmission of the introduction of ACT and alternative first-line treatments for malaria in six regions of Tanzania with different levels of malaria transmission.

What Did the Researchers Do and Find?

The researchers developed a “deterministic compartmental” model of malaria transmission in human and mosquito populations and included numerous variables likely to affect malaria transmission (variables were based on data collected in Tanzania just before the introduction of ACT). They then used the model to estimate the impact on malaria transmission of introducing ACT or other antimalarial drugs with different properties. The model predicted that the percentage reduction in the prevalence of infection (the fraction of the population with malaria) and the incidence of infection (the number of new cases in the population per year) associated with a 100% switch to ACT would be greater in areas with low initial transmission rates than in areas with high transmission rates. For example, in the area with the lowest initial transmission rates, the model predicted that the prevalence of infection would drop by 53%, but in the area with the highest initial transmission rate, the drop would be only 11%. However, because more people get malaria in high-transmission areas, the total number of malaria illness episodes prevented would be ten times higher in the area with highest transmission than in the area with lowest transmission. The model also predicted that, in areas with high transmission, long-acting treatments which protect patients from reinfection would reduce transmission more effectively than some common currently used ACT regimens which are gametocyte-killing but short-acting. Treatments which were both long-acting and gametocyte-killing were predicted to have the biggest impact across all settings.

What Do These Findings Mean?

As with all mathematical models, the accuracy of the predictions made by this model depend on the many assumptions incorporated into the model. In addition, because data from Tanzania were fed into the model, its predictions are to some extent specific to the area. Nevertheless the Tanzanian setting is typical of sub-Saharan malaria-affected areas, and the authors show that varying their assumptions and the data fed into the model within realistic ranges in most cases does not substantially change their overall conclusions. The findings in this study suggest that in low-transmission areas, provided ACT is widely used, ACT may reduce malaria transmission as effectively as the widespread use of insecticide-treated bed nets. The findings also suggest that the use of longer-acting regimens with or without artemisinin components might be a good way to reduce transmission in high-transmission areas, provided the development of parasite resistance can be avoided. More generally, these findings suggest that public-health officials need to take the properties of antimalarial drugs into account together with the levels of transmission in the area when designing policies in order to achieve the highest impact on malaria transmission.

Additional Information.

Please access these Web sites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050226.

• This study is further discussed in a PLoS Medicine Perspective by Maciej Boni and colleagues

• The MedlinePlus encyclopedia contains a page on malaria (in English and Spanish)

• Information is available from the World Health Organization on malaria (in several languages)

• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides information on malaria (in English and Spanish)

• Information is available from the Roll Back Malaria Partnership on its approach to the global control of malaria, on artemisinin-based combination therapies, and on malaria in Tanzania