title: Confirmed vivax resistance to chloroquine and effectiveness of artemether-lumefantrine for the treatment of vivax malaria in Ethiopia.
abstract: Chloroquine (CQ) is still the drug of choice for the treatment of vivax malaria in Ethiopia, whereas artemether-lumefantrine (AL) is for falciparum malaria. In this setting, clinical malaria cases are treated with AL. This necessitated the need to assess the effectiveness of AL for the treatment of Plasmodium vivax with CQ as a comparator. A total of 57 (80.3%) and 75 (85.2%) cases treated with CQ or AL, respectively, completed the study in an outpatient setting. At the end of the follow-up period of 28 days, a cumulative incidence of treatment failure of 7.5% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.9-18.9%) for CQ and 19% (95% CI = 11-31.6%) for AL was detected. CQ resistance was confirmed in three of five CQ treatment failures cases. The effectiveness of AL seems lower than CQ; however, the findings were not conclusive, because the AL evening doses were not supervised.
authors.affiliation: World Health Organization Country Office, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. yohannesam@who.int
authors.forename: Ambachew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Yohannes
authors.forename: Awash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Teklehaimanot
authors.forename: Yngve
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bergqvist
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ringwald
mesh_terms: D000962:Antimalarials / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000077611:Artemether, Lumefantrine Drug Combination; D037621:Artemisinins / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002738:Chloroquine / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004338:Drug Combinations; D004351:Drug Resistance; D004983:Ethanolamines / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005002:Ethiopia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005449:Fluorenes / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D016780:Malaria, Vivax / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D010966:Plasmodium vivax / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D000962:Antimalarials; D000077611:Artemether, Lumefantrine Drug Combination; D037621:Artemisinins; D004338:Drug Combinations; D004983:Ethanolamines; D005449:Fluorenes; D002738:Chloroquine