Scientists find old malaria drug effective

Agatha Ayebazibwe | 11 Oct 2012
Daily Monitor Scientists monitoring disease resistance have found that chloroquine, once a frontline malaria drug, is becoming effective again in the treatment of the illness.

In a study conducted by the University of Copenhagen and published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, researchers reported that malaria parasites had been found to be more susceptible to chloroquine in several African countries.

"Seventy per cent of the malaria parasites we found in Senegal are reacting once again to chloroquine. This is a trend we have also seen in Tanzania and Mozambique, and which other researchers have shown in Malawi," Mr Michael Alifrangis, an associate professor at the Centre for Medical Parasitology at the university, said.

While health workers and doctors in other countries seem excited about the drug due to its low cost, in Uganda this is likely not to happen soon as the malaria control programme officials said they could go back to chloroquine after a study is done in the country.

Dr Albert Okui, the programme's officer for the Malaria Control Programme in the Ministry of Health, told Daily Monitor: "Before we can switch back to chloroquine, a long term study has to be done in Uganda because the level of effectiveness of a drug may vary from place to place or country to country."

The World Health Organisation Country Representative, Dr Joaquim Saweka, also said Uganda was not ready to use chloroquine, however cheap it maybe because the process of withdrawal was never completed at once".

He added: "While I acknowledge that this is a good move, especially in developing countries with a huge burden of malaria, at the moment I wouldn't recommend that Uganda switches back to chloroquine until we succeed in eliminating resistance."

Dr Saweka also noted that the withdrawal of chloroquine was not done at once to rule out its usage. "It remains unclear at which point the drug was phased out but two to three years back, the drug was still being used in some private facilities and it's possible that it is still being used even now. We need an allowance of at least 10 years before we can use the drug which was withdrawn after the population developed resistance to it," he said.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Scientists+find+old+malaria+drug+effective/-/688334/1530448/-/3otygsz/-/index.html