Source: All Africa
Scientists have come up with a new drug that could be more effective in preventing malaria in pregnant women, especially where there is resistance to current treatments.

Researchers from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Kenya and the US; and from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, have found that dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHP), may be more effective in preventing malaria in pregnant women.

The World Health Organisation currently recommends that women in areas of stable malaria transmission receive intermittent preventative treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) with the antimalarial drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP).

WHO recommends that SP be given at each scheduled antenatal clinic visit except in the first trimester. However, scientists say high levels of resistance from the malaria parasite to this drug threatens its efficacy.

"Like all malarial treatments, the plasmodium parasites have quickly developed resistance to this drug, meaning that in many areas, SP-IPTp is rapidly becoming ineffective and an alternative approach will soon be needed," say the researchers.

In their study, the scientists found that deployment of DHP for malaria in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy is associated with a significant decrease in adverse maternal and infant outcomes.

The study evaluated the efficacy and safety of two alternative strategies in comparison with standard treatment recommended for the prevention of malaria in 1,546 HIV-negative pregnant women in western Kenya.

The study looked at two alternatives to the recommended treatment strategy intermittent screening with malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and treatment of RDT-positive women with the new drug dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (ISTp-DP); and intermittent preventative treatment with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (IPTp-DP).

It was found that there were more instances of malaria with ISTp-DP compared with the existing IPTp-SP strategy, however there was a much lower instance of malaria in the IPTp-DP treated group.

"Malaria in pregnant women is a serious public health problem, and in areas of high resistance to SP it is clear that an alternative treatment is needed," said Feiko ter Kuile, the study leader and a professor at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.