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TUESDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists are reporting medical advances against malaria, a global scourge that kills more than one million people each year, many of them children.
In one of a number of trials published this week in a special theme issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, U.S. researchers report that the timely use of key drug combinations saved the lives of children threatened by the mosquito-borne disease.
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Over a year and a half, none of the 601 Ugandan children enrolled in the trial died from a recurrence of malaria.
"In the context of sub-Saharan Africa, which has high infant mortality, these children are doing great," said lead researcher Dr. Philip J. Rosenthal, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
According to the World Health Organization, malaria remains a leading cause of sickness and death worldwide. More than 3 billion people live in areas at risk of contracting the illness, and more than 500 million people come down with severe malaria each year. The disease is caused by the microscopic Plasmodium parasite, which enters the bloodstream via the bite of a mosquito.
In the trial, Rosenthal's team evaluated the three leading available combination drug regimens for the treatment of P. falciparum malaria, a severe form of the disease with a high death rate. Such evaluations are needed, because there is increasing resistance to some drugs, requiring changes in treatment.
The study included healthy children ages 1 to 10 diagnosed with a first episode of malaria. They were randomized to receive one of three drug combination treatments: amodiaquine plus sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine; amodiaquine plus artesunate; or artemether plus lumefantrine -- two of the newer antimalarial drugs.
There were recurrences of malaria in all three groups, Rosenthal said, with 26.1 percent of children in the first group, 17.4 percent in the second group and 6.7 percent having recurrences in the first four weeks.
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