Who is this summary for?

For Doctors and Health Personnel,  Administrators and Managers of health facilities, Community Health Workers and the partners involved in the management of simple malaria.

 Key findings

Treatment failure was very low for Artemisinin-naphthoquine and artemether-lumefantrine at Day 28 and Day 42.

·         Treatment failure was very low with both artemisinin-naphthoquine and dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine at Day 28 and Day 42.

Background

Uncomplicated malaria is the mild form of malaria which usually causes a fever, with or without headache, tiredness, muscle pains, abdominal pains, nausea, and vomiting. If left untreated, uncomplicated malaria can develop into severe malaria with kidney failure, breathing difficulties, seizure, unconsciousness, and eventually death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for treating people with P. falciparum malaria. Five combinations are currently recommended, all administered over three days. Artemisinin-naphthoquine is a new combination developed in China, which is being marketed and evaluated as one-day or three-day regimens.

Question

What are the efficacy and safety of the artemisinin-naphthoquine combination for treating adults and children with uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria?

Artemisinin-naphthoquine for treating uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Cameroon: Malaria is responsible for 40% of hospitalizations and 18% of all deaths in Cameroon according to Demographic and Health Survey, 2011.  Artemisinin-naphthoquine is already used in the treatment of uncomplicated malaria in Cameroon.

Applicability

The trials were conducted in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. These findings may be applied in other low resources settings.

Conclusions

The results of these few trials of artemisinin-naphthoquine are promising, but larger trials from multiple settings are required to be confident that artemisinin-naphthoquine is as effective and well tolerated as other antimalarials.