A Research Agenda for Malaria Eradication: Drugs

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

The Malaria Eradication Research Agenda (malERA) Consultative Group on Drugs present a research and development agenda to ensure that appropriate drugs are available for use in malaria eradication.

Abstract

Antimalarial drugs will be essential tools at all stages of malaria elimination along the path towards eradication, including the early control or “attack” phase to drive down transmission and the later stages of maintaining interruption of transmission, preventing reintroduction of malaria, and eliminating the last residual foci of infection. Drugs will continue to be used to treat acute malaria illness and prevent complications in vulnerable groups, but better drugs are needed for elimination-specific indications such as mass treatment, curing asymptomatic infections, curing relapsing liver stages, and preventing transmission. The ideal malaria eradication drug is a coformulated drug combination suitable for mass administration that can be administered in a single encounter at infrequent intervals and that results in radical cure of all life cycle stages of all five malaria species infecting humans. Short of this optimal goal, highly desirable drugs might have limitations such as targeting only one or two parasite species, the priorities being Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. The malaria research agenda for eradication should include research aimed at developing such drugs and research to develop situation-specific strategies for using both current and future drugs to interrupt malaria transmission.

Related collections

Most cited references 23

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Vivax malaria: neglected and not benign.

Nicholas Anstey, Carlos Guerra, Shunmay Yeung … (2007)

Plasmodium vivax threatens almost 40% of the world's population, resulting in 132-391 million clinical infections each year. Most of these cases originate from Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, although a significant number also occurs in Africa and South America. Although often regarded as causing a benign and self-limiting infection, there is increasing evidence that the overall burden, economic impact, and severity of disease from P. vivax have been underestimated. Malaria control strategies have had limited success and are confounded by the lack of access to reliable diagnosis, emergence of multidrug resistant isolates, the parasite's ability to transmit early in the course of disease and relapse from dormant liver stages at varying time intervals after the initial infection. Progress in reducing the burden of disease will require improved access to reliable diagnosis and effective treatment of both blood-stage and latent parasites, and more detailed characterization of the epidemiology, morbidity, and economic impact of vivax malaria. Without these, vivax malaria will continue to be neglected by ministries of health, policy makers, researchers, and funding bodies.

0 comments Cited 324 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Artemisinin resistance: current status and scenarios for containment.

Arjen M. Dondorp, Shunmay Yeung, Lisa R. White … (2010)

Artemisinin combination therapies are the first-line treatments for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in most malaria-endemic countries. Recently, partial artemisinin-resistant P. falciparum malaria has emerged on the Cambodia-Thailand border. Exposure of the parasite population to artemisinin monotherapies in subtherapeutic doses for over 30 years, and the availability of substandard artemisinins, have probably been the main driving force in the selection of the resistant phenotype in the region. A multifaceted containment programme has recently been launched, including early diagnosis and appropriate treatment, decreasing drug pressure, optimising vector control, targeting the mobile population, strengthening management and surveillance systems, and operational research. Mathematical modelling can be a useful tool to evaluate possible strategies for containment.

0 comments Cited 164 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Malaria eradication on islands.

A. Kaneko, G Taleo, M Kalkoa … (2000)

To be successful, a malaria control programme needs to be tailored to the local epidemiological characteristics. Vanuatu consists of 80 inhabited islands in the Southwest Pacific, with hypoendemic and mesoendemic malaria and suitable conditions for sustained parasite elimination. We aimed to assess whether malaria can be eliminated on isolated islands. Weekly mass drug administration of chloroquine, pyrimethamine/sulfadoxine (Fansidar), and primaquine was carried out on the entire population of 718 inhabitants of Aneityum island for 9 weeks in 1991 before the onset of the rainy season. Simultaneously with the administration of drugs, permethrin-impregnated bednets were distributed to the entire population. Larvivorous fish were also introduced into several identified breeding sites of Anopheles farauti. Periodic malariometric monitoring has continued for the past 9 years. Two additional islands of Vanuatu, one with and one without malaria transmission, have been monitored for comparison. High community involvement as measured by drug compliance (88.3%) and bednet provision (0.94 nets per villager) has resulted in sustained interruption of malaria transmission in Aneityum. The surveys showed complete absence of Plasmodium falciparum after mass drug administration, and P. vivax disappeared from 1996 onwards, with the exception of two instances of imported infections (one mixed infection in 1993 and one P. vivax infection in 1999). Malaria can be eliminated on isolated islands with well-adapted short-term mass drug administration and sustained vector control if there is a high degree of community participation.

0 comments Cited 108 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS Med

Journal ID (publisher-id): PLoS

Journal ID (pmc): plosmed

Title: PLoS Medicine

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )

ISSN (Print): 1549-1277

ISSN (Electronic): 1549-1676

Publication date Collection: January 2011

Publication date (Print): January 2011

Publication date (Electronic): 25 January 2011

Volume: 8

Issue: 1

Electronic Location Identifier: e1000402

Author notes

* E-mail: cplowe@ 123456medicine.umaryland.edu

CP is the corresponding author on behalf of the malERA Consultative Group on Drugs. Chaired the group: CP. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: PLA, AD, AM, JM, JN, CP, TW, SY. Participated in one or more discussion meetings resulting in the writing of this article: the malERA Consultative Group on Drugs.

¶ Full listing of the members of the malERA Consultative Group on Drugs can be found in the Acknowledgments.

Review articles synthesize in narrative form the best available evidence on a topic.

Article

Publisher ID: 10-PLME-ES-5913R1

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000402

PMC ID: 3026688

PubMed ID: 21311580

SO-VID: c2206280-e211-43b7-87a4-c7b36304597d

Copyright © The malERA Consultative Group on Drugs. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

A Research Agenda for Malaria Eradication: Drugs

Read this article at

Abstract

Abstract

Related collections

Malaria vaccine development

Most cited references 23

Vivax malaria: neglected and not benign.

Artemisinin resistance: current status and scenarios for containment.

Malaria eradication on islands.

Author and article information

Journal

Author notes

Article

History

Page count

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 22

Cited by 92

Most referenced authors 340