Adoption of 100 percent effective malaria treatment likely, says WHO

Burundi is likely to be the first country in Africa's Great Lakes region to adopt an almost 100 percent effective treatment for malaria, using the combination therapy of artesunate and amodiaquine, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Burundi office reported on Sunday. This decision is the outcome of a four-day workshop the Ministry of Health organised in collaboration with WHO in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, that ended on Friday. WHO said artesunate was derived from the Chinese herb Artemisia annua and halted the progress of the disease when used in combination with effective drugs such as amodiaquine. The drug regime must be taken within 24 hours after the initial signs of malaria to be effective, WHO added. "The combination therapy increases the effectiveness of the treatment, and is expected to delay the development of resistant parasites," WHO said. In Burundi, it said, the plasmodium falciparum parasite, which causes malaria, had become highly resistant to the more common drugs such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (S-P). These were the most commonly used antimalarials within the primary health-care system in Africa, WHO said. But due to the high level of resistance to S-P, the health ministry was conducting further research into new molecules that could be adapted to prevent malaria, WHO said. Burundi would continue to use quinine as the second line of defence against malaria and for the management of severe cases of the disease, WHO said. Participants at the workshop recommended that the new drug protocol be applied in 12 months, to give health authorities time to raise the awareness of the Burundian public. Participants at the workshop came from UN agencies, the EU, USAID, ECHO, as well as international and local NGOs.