Kemri intensifies search for alternative malaria drugs
A combination malaria treatment of Artemether and Lumefantrine. Kenya is facing a stockout of these first line malaria medicines yet substandard drugs flood the market. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
- Recent studies show current malaria drugs are expected to fail in some years, according to trends in some Asian countries.
- The trends show that the malaria parasite is already becoming resistant to the current first-line drugs (artemether and lumefantrine combination, or AL) and alternative treatment.
Kenyan researchers have increased their focus on finding alternative medicines to treat malaria in case the current drugs become ineffective.
Recent studies show current malaria drugs are expected to fail in some years, according to trends in some Asian countries. The trends show that the malaria parasite is already becoming resistant to the current first-line drugs (artemether and lumefantrine combination, or AL) and alternative treatment.
The alternative set of drugs the researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute(Kemri) are looking at is the DHA-PPQ combination (or Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine combination).
To determine if resistance to the alternative medications has already reached the country, the Kemri experts have analysed samples of infected blood that had been held for the last 14 years.
The researchers found that mutations causing resistance to AL elsewhere are present in the country but at low frequencies and appeared susceptible to Kenya’s alternative drug combination PPQ.
“Circulating Kenyan parasites have remained sensitive to PPQ and other antimalarials, though the response to AL is declining. Continuous parasite susceptibility to PPQ in Kenya could be due to the low PPQ drug pressure given that it had never been deployed in Kenya,” researchers say in the results published in the BMC Medicine journal. Given Africa’s extensive reliance on AL, the World Health Organization warns that complete treatment failure could have disastrous effects.
“We don’t have many options for malaria drugs. As it stands, we just have artemisinin-based combination therapies for uncomplicated malaria. So any threat to these drugs could lead to lots of cases and deaths, which we want to avoid,” Dr Dorothy Achu, WHO’s team leader for Tropical and Vector-Borne Diseases for the WHO African Region, said.
According to the report, malaria cases in the country have continued to increase, with 3,419,698 cases recorded in 2021, from 3,302,189 cases the previous year.
The report further shows that deaths from malaria also rose to 12,011 in 2021 from 11,768 in 2020.
Kenya accounted for 1.3 per cent of all malaria cases globally in 2021, a rise from 1.1 per cent the previous year. Still, it accounted for 1.9 percent of deaths globally in 2021, a decrease from two percent in 2020.
According to World Malaria Report released in December by WHO, Kenya was off the track for both the malaria morbidity and mortality milestones but achieved reductions in malaria case incidence by 2021 compared with 2015.
