ABSTRACT
Objective To study the effects of dihydroartemisinin and quinine on plasmodium falciparum gametocytes at early stage. Methods Eleven patients with falciparum malaria who had plasmodium falciparum gametocytes at early stage(PFGe) in bone marrow but no matured plasmodium falciparum gametocytes(PFGm) in bone marrow and peripheral blood were allocated to two groups.Group A(n=6) were administered orally with dihydroartemisinin at a total dosage of 480mg for 7 days and Group B(n=5) with quinine sulfate at a total dosage of 10?500 mg for 7 days.The number of gametocytes in bone marrow and peripheral blood was examined at regular time. Results PFGe in bone marrow disappeared in Group A on 10 th day after the first administration while existed in all the cases of Group B on 10 th day and still in 2 cases on 14 th day.The clearance time for peripheral PFGe was 4.8?0.9 days in Group A and 22.0?5.8 days in Group B. Conclusion Dihydroartemisinin can clear PFGe but quinine shows no this action.
ABSTRACT
A study was carried out in south of Vietnam 15 Patients with Plasmodium falciparum gametocytes and asexual parasites were distributed into groups A, B and C. Artesunate was given orally at a total dose of 600 mg for 5 days in group A, 200 mg for 2 days in group B and intravenously at a total dose of 360 mg for 5 days in group C respectively. Gametocytes count was done before medication and daily after medication. Meanwhile, Anopheles dirus as a vector was employed to study the infectivity of gametocyte, The result showed that the mean gametocyte clearance time in three groups were respectively 15.4?5.0, 20.6?4.8 and 20.3?4.0 days. The mosquitoes were not infected from the blood in 2, 5 and 5 of 5 patients respectively on days 7, 14 and 21 in group A; 1 and 5 of 5 patients on day 14 and 21 in group B; 2 of 5 patients and 3 of 3 patients on days 14 and 21 in group C. It indicates that artesunate has remarkable effect on Plasmodium falciparum gametocytemia and its infectivity to mosquitoes.