Latest Artesunate Stories

University of California - Berkeley Twelve years after a breakthrough discovery in his University of California, Berkeley, laboratory, professor of chemical engineering Jay Keasling is seeing his dream come true. On April 11, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi will launch the large-scale production of a partially synthetic version of artemisinin, a chemical critical to making today's front-line antimalaria drug, based on Keasling's discovery. The drug is the first triumph of the...

In most comprehensive review of a decade of data researchers confirm indoor insecticide treatments, dramatically reduce malaria; study finds world’s best drug still effective in African malaria 'hot zone' while researchers question for how long A pair of provocative studies in the July 2012 issue of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (AJTMH) provides a window into the intense ground war now underway against malaria. In one review, researchers offer new evidence...

Genetics study identifies key genome region underlying artemisinin resistance in malaria parasite Evidence that the most deadly species of malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is becoming resistant to the front line treatment for malaria on the border of Thailand and Myanmar (Burma) is reported in The Lancet today. This increases concern that resistance could now spread to India and then Africa as resistance to other antimalarial drugs has done before. Eliminating malaria might then...

A large study from Africa, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, has found that in a direct comparison, three types of new, fast-acting antimalarial artemisinin-based combination therapy drugs (ACTs), which comprise artemisinin derivatives in combination with a partner antimalarial drug, AL (artesunate–mefloquine), ASAQ (artesunate–amodiaquine) and DHAPQ (dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine) are all effective for treating children with uncomplicated malaria. In a randomized trial from...

Researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Public College Health have shown for the first time in a rodent model that the earliest form of malaria parasites can lay dormant in red blood cells and “wake up,” or recover, following treatment with the antimalarial drug artesunate. The study, which appears today in the online journal PLoS ONE, suggests that this early-stage dormancy phenomenon contributes to the failure of artesunate alone, or even combined with other...

Quinine should no longer be the drug of choice for treating severe malaria, according to an updated systematic review by Cochrane researchers. It is now evident that the antimalarial drug artesunate, which is derived from herbs used in Chinese medicine, is more effective at preventing death in patients with severe malaria.Severe malaria occurs when the disease affects the function of vital organs. It is associated with rarer cerebral malaria, which affects the brain and can lead to long-term...

Giving emergency artesunate suppositories to children with suspected severe malaria before referring them for treatment is a cost-effective intervention that can substantially improve the management of childhood malaria in remote African settings, according to a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health [BUSPH] researcher Yesim Tozan, PhD, (link to profile: http://sph.bu.edu/tozan)The study, which appears online Nov. 29 in The Lancet , builds on previous research that found...

The largest ever clinical trial in patients hospitalised with severe malaria has concluded that the drug artesunate should now be the preferred treatment for the disease in both children and adults everywhere in the world. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is published today online in the journal The Lancet.An international consortium of researchers, led by Professor Nick White of the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme in Bangkok, Thailand,...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Evidence of resistance to the antimalarial drug artemisinin and its derivatives threatens efforts to control malaria in Southeast Asia, and experts fear artemisinin resistance may spread from the Thailand-Cambodia border to affect other malaria endemic countries. Evidence to such effect was presented today at the 58th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). The prospect of spreading artemisinin resistance is...

Malaria parasites in western Cambodia have become resistant to artemisinin-based therapies, the first-line treatment for malaria, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine today. Resistance to the drugs makes them less effective and could eventually render them obsolete, putting millions of lives at risk.Signs of artemisinin resistance have been reported in the region already, but this new research is the first detailed study of the problem. The study was funded by...