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Vaudine England

A new combination drug to wipe out malaria is showing almost 100 per cent efficacy in trials, the results of which are due to be announced tomorrow in Cambodia.

The cure, with the registered trade name Artekin, is cheap, produces no side effects and is easy to administer.

Its development is thanks to Li Guo Qiao, of Guangzhou, who has been a pioneer in the clinical application of anti-malaria drugs for decades.

'I would say it's an exciting new combination,' Timothy Davis, of the medical faculty at the University of Western Australia, told the South China Morning Post  by phone from Cambodia.

Data about the new cure - a novel combination of two well-known anti-malaria drugs - is currently being unveiled at the Mekong Malaria Symposium near Angkor Wat, where more than 300 scientists from around the world have gathered.

Tests over the past year among children in Cambodia and adults in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City have proved the new treatment cures malaria, with just four doses taken over 36 hours.

Its development follows a recent dramatic drop in the incidence of malaria. However, death tolls across Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam remain high.

The drop is being attributed to intensive village-based research, testing and treatment stations, along with the new drug research, scientists at the symposium say.

The malaria-causing parasites carried by mosquitoes have long proved adept at evolving a resistance to whatever new drug is thrown at them, and the drugs have also caused side-effects such as nausea and hallucinations.

But scientists explained that the treatment had been in development for four years, which was not a long enough period to show whether Artekin could forestall the parasites' ability to build a resistance to it.

'Ideally, for a combination therapy we would want [the drug] to have a shorter half-life,' Dr Davis added, referring to the time it takes for the drug to break down in the human body after it has cured the ailment. 'But this drug is very well tolerated, non-toxic, effective and cheap.'

Sean Hewitt, adviser to the Cambodia office of the European Commission's Regional Malaria Control Project, agreed. 'We're getting up to 100 per cent efficacy,' he said. Both Dr Hewitt and Dr Davis are part of the symposium in Siem Reap.

Artekin is a novel combination of two well-known anti-malaria drugs, dihydroartemisinin (DHA) and piperaquine.

Piperaquine is related to the chloroquine drug which travellers and malaria victims have strongly disliked for years and which has become almost useless against new parasite variants. DHA is a derivative of artemisinin (a compound called qinghaosu  in Chinese from the qinghao  plant), a traditional source of malaria cures.

Both have been around for decades, but the trick this time was in finding the right combination of the two drugs, something which scientists credit to Dr Li.

The only drawback to the new combination, one scientist said, was that the piperaquine component has been found to stay around in the body for several weeks after being taken.

This raises the possibility that mosquito-borne parasites could build a resistance to it.

'But this may not happen if it is used judicially and in the right combinations,' Dr Davis said.

The discovery of Artekin can be traced to efforts in China under Mao Zedong by Dr Li and others to find a cure for malaria.

Researchers working in Thailand through the Wellcome Trust came across results from Dr Li's studies at the time, and doctors have been experimenting with the possibilities ever since.

The race among experts is to find a drug which could cure malaria in a single dose. Artekin does not pretend to do this.

But consumers in the West will have to wait some time for this new drug as the development and testing of Artekin has not passed the regulatory requirements of many Western countries.

Dr Davis said this was not a problem in the Mekong countries, where malaria is an ever-present scourge needing urgent attention.



Scientists unveil a cheap treatment to cure malaria