AQ-13 against malaria

A new drug for the treatment of malaria has successfully passed clinical trials

Anna Kerman, XX2 century, based on ScienceDaily: New drug effective against malaria

Scientists from the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine of Tulane University have developed a new drug for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria. The effectiveness of the drug was confirmed during clinical trials conducted under the supervision of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The results of the work are published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The appearance of a new drug for malaria is very important and good news. In recent years, health experts have increasingly said that Plasmodium falciparum (the causative agent of malaria in the vast majority of cases) is gradually developing resistance to existing drugs. This means that so-called second-line drugs are needed to fight the disease: they are used when standard approaches are useless.

During clinical trials, the new drug (while it is called AQ-13) relieved patients of the pathogenic parasite in an average week. This means that the effectiveness of the new drug is comparable to malaria drugs that are used in medical institutions around the world. "The test results were extremely encouraging," says Dr. Donald Krogstad, lead author of the study. "Compared to existing first–line drugs, the new remedy has proven itself very well."

Malaria-infected vector mosquitoes cause more than 200 million new cases of the disease annually, and more than 400 thousand are fatal. Chloroquine has been used for several decades to fight malaria – it was used until the causative agent of the disease developed resistance to the drug. Today, a combination of artemether and lumefantrine is often used, but cases of immunity of malaria plasmodium to this combination of drugs have already been reported from some countries.

For the study, scientists selected 66 adult men, residents of Mali. All participants suffered from uncomplicated malaria, that is, a form of the disease that did not threaten the lives of patients. Half of the patients were prescribed AQ-13, the rest of the volunteers received artemether and lumefantrin. The effectiveness of treatment in both groups was approximately the same, however, five people who received AQ-13 left the study prematurely, and two patients from the control group registered a relapse of the disease.

Now scientists hope to conduct a larger study in which women and children will participate. After successful completion of such trials, AQ-13 may be recommended as a new drug for the treatment of malaria. Krogstad noted that the same biotechnology that helped the team develop AQ-13 made it possible to identify 66 more promising candidate drugs for the treatment of other parasitic diseases resistant to standard therapy.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  19.09.2017