Plasmodium falciparum clearance rates in response to artesunate in Malian children with malaria: effect of acquired immunity.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Artemisinin resistance, a long parasite clearance half-life in response to artemisinin, has been described in patients with Plasmodium falciparum malaria in southeast Asia. Few baseline half-lives have been reported from Africa, where artemisinins were recently introduced.

Methods

We treated P. falciparum malaria in 215 Malian children aged 0.5-15 years with artesunate (0, 24, 48 hours) and amodiaquine (72, 96, 120 hours). We estimated half-life by measuring parasite density every 6 hours until undetectable and evaluated the effects of age, sex, ethnicity, and red blood cell (RBC) polymorphisms on half-life. We quantified the proportion of parasitized RBCs recognized by autologous immunoglobulin G (IgG).

Results

The geometric mean half-life was 1.9 hours (9

SUBMITTER: Lopera-Mesa TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3636783 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature