Single dose treatment of malaria - current status and perspectives

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Despite increased international efforts for control and ultimate elimination, malaria remains a major health problem. Currently, artemisinin-based combination therapies are the treatment of choice for uncomplicated malaria exhibiting high efficacy in clinical trial settings in sub-Saharan Africa. However, their administration over a three-day period is associated with important problems of treatment adherence resulting in markedly reduced effectiveness of currently recommended antimalarials under real world settings.

Areas covered: Antimalarial drug candidates and antimalarial drug combinations currently under advanced clinical development for the indication as single dose antimalarial therapy.

Expert commentary: Several new drug candidates and combinations are currently undergoing pivotal proof-of-concept studies or clinical development programmes. The development of a single dose combination therapy would constitute a breakthrough in the control of malaria. Such an innovative treatment approach would simultaneously close the effectiveness gap of current three-day therapies and revolutionize population based interventions in the context of malaria elimination campaigns.

KEYWORDS:

• Single dose treatment
• malaria
• falciparum
• OZ277
• OZ439
• tafenoquine
• naphthoquine
• KAE609
• KAF156
• DSM265
• AQ-13
• ferroquine
• piperaquine
• effectiveness

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support of the Global Infectious Disease Control Association in the preparation of this work. The authors would also like to thank the Landsteiner Gesellschaft for the financial support. Neither association influenced the study design, data collection, analysis of data and preparation of the manuscript. The authors acknowledge the support of the ESCMID Study Group for Clinical Parasitology.

Declaration of interest

M Ramharter has provided consultant services for Medicines for Malaria Venture. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.