Comparaison of Clinical and Parasitological Responses to Sulfalene-Pyrimethamine plus Amodiaquine versus Amodiaquine plus Artesunate in the Treatment of Uncomplicated Malaria in Endemic Areas in Africa

ABSTRACT

Despite all the effort expended in the context of diverse international programmes; malaria still represents a massive public health problem. The treatment of patients has been complicated by the emergence and spread of Plasmodium Falciparum resistant to the regular antimalarial drugs. Thus research has focused on the identification of more effective but safe treatment modalities; notably drug combination. In this context; we have investigated the efficacy and safety of a novel combination; namely sulfalene/ pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine; by comparing it to amodiaquine plus artesunate (a combination recently adopted as first-line treatment in many countries). The randomized; multicentre; comparative study was conducted simultaneously in Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire in the first six months of 2005. WHO methods for the evaluation of the efficacy of antimalarial drugs was used and a total of 467 patients were included. The two regime comparably effective with a clinical and parasitologic response rate of 97for sulfalene/pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine compared with 98.1for artesunate plus amodiaquine after PCR correction. Tolerance was also comparable in both groups