How important is gametocyte clearance after malaria therapy?
There has been increasing interest in the role of malaria drugs in preventing malaria transmission from humans to mosquitoes, which would help augment malaria control and elimination strategies. Nevertheless, only one stage in the malaria parasite life cycle, the gametocyte, is infectious to mosquitoes. The Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) have analyzed data from 48,840 patients from 141 clinical trials in order to define the nature and determinants of gametocyte clearance following artemisinin combination treatment (ACT) for symptomatic malaria infections. However, the presence of gametocytes does not always predict their infectivity, meaning that the microscopy-based methods used by the WWARN investigators represent an imperfect surrogate marker of transmissibility. Their findings, that some ACTs clear gametocytes faster than others, should be interpreted in light of these limitations and important gaps in our understanding of the biology and epidemiology of malaria transmission.Please see related article: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-016-0621-7.
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 1G Royal Parade, Parkville, Vic, 3052, Australia. karunajeewa.h@wehi.edu.au.|Western Centre for Health Research and Education, Western Health, Melbourne, Australia. karunajeewa.h@wehi.edu.au.
Harin A
HA
Karunajeewa
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 1G Royal Parade, Parkville, Vic, 3052, Australia.|Malaria: Parasites & Hosts Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
Ivo
I
Mueller
D000818:Animals; D000962:Antimalarials / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D037621:Artemisinins / Q000627:therapeutic use; D009033:Culicidae / Q000469:parasitology*; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000187:drug effects*
D000962:Antimalarials; D037621:Artemisinins; C031327:artemisinin
Antimalarial; Artemisinin combination therapy; Gametocyte clearance; Gametocytes; Malaria; P. falciparum