Join the 'Malaria' group to help and get support from people like you. How it works
Malaria Blog
| Tweet |
Children Usually Excluded From Clinical Drug Trials: Study
Posted 30 Apr 2012 by Drugs.com
MONDAY, April 30 – Children are more likely than adults to suffer from a number of diseases, but few clinical trials are conducted to test new drugs in children with these conditions, researchers have found. In a new study, researchers looked at all clinical trials registered worldwide from 2006 to 2011 for drugs to treat these common conditions: asthma, migraine headaches, schizophrenia, depression, diarrheal illness, lower respiratory infection, malaria, bipolar disorder and HIV/AIDS. While children account for 60 percent of the patients with these conditions, only 12 percent of the clinical drug trials involved children, the investigators found. The gap was widest for conditions that are widespread in low- and middle-income countries. Clinical drug trials in children are important because youngsters often respond differently to medications than adults, the study authors pointed out ... Read more
Related support groups: Bipolar Disorder, Migraine, Asthma, Diarrhea, Schizophrenia, HIV Infection, Malaria
Older Travelers at Much Higher Risk of Dying From Malaria
Posted 28 Mar 2012 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, March 28 – Tourists over age 65 who visit malaria-infested regions are nearly 10 times more likely to die from the disease than those ages 18 to 35, a new study says. The analysis of 20 years of data from more than 25,000 U.K. patients also found that the malaria death rate is particularly high among people who've traveled to Gambia, West Africa. The risk of dying from malaria, an infection carried by mosquitoes, increased with age, and the death rate for those over age 65 was 4.6 percent. There were no deaths in children younger than age 5, according to the study published online March 28 in the British Medical Journal. The researchers also found that tourists were more than nine times more likely to die from malaria than people of African heritage who traveled to see family or friends – 3 percent vs. 0.32 percent. This decreased death risk among people of African heritage ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria, Malaria Prevention, Malaria Prophylaxis
Malaria's Global Death Toll Much Higher Than Thought
Posted 3 Feb 2012 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Feb. 3 – Malaria killed 1.2 million people worldwide in 2010, a figure nearly double other estimates, a new study says. The researchers also said that although most malaria deaths occur in very young children, 42 percent of deaths occurred in children over age 5 and adults. The findings are published in the Feb. 4 edition of The Lancet. According to the analysis of data collected from 1980 to 2010, global malaria deaths rose from 1 million in 1980 to a peak of 1.8 million in 2004. Since then, increased malaria intervention efforts have helped to reduce malaria death rates, Christopher Murray, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues noted in journal news release. The 1.2 million malaria deaths in 2010 was a 32 percent decrease from the number of malaria deaths in 2004, the authors noted. In 2010, there were ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria, Malaria Prevention, Malaria Prophylaxis
Promising Malaria Vaccine May Save Children's Lives
Posted 18 Oct 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Oct. 18 – In an important first, a new vaccine has been shown to cut the risk of malaria in young African children by about half, according to research announced Tuesday. Although the effectiveness shown in this Phase 3 trial is far less than the near-100 percent effectiveness often seen in childhood vaccines for other illnesses in the West, the findings are promising, given that malaria kills some 800,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa alone each year. "This potentially translates into [the prevention of] tens of millions of cases of malaria in children," said Dr. Tsiri Agbenyega, a principal investigator of the trial. Other experts agreed. "This is really important because it's a viable strategy against a major killer of children in the world," added Dr. Kenneth Bromberg, chairman of pediatrics and director of the Vaccine Research Center at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, New ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria, Malaria Prevention, Malaria Prophylaxis
Herbal Derivative Wins Praise as Malaria Treatment
Posted 16 Mar 2011 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, March 16 – Artesunate should replace quinine as the drug of choice for treating malaria, according to an updated review of clinical trial results. Derived from herbs used in Chinese medicine, artesunate was found to be more effective at preventing death in people with severe malaria. The review, published in the Cochrane Library, includes the findings of a large study of African children published last year in The Lancet and eight other clinical trials, all together involving 1,664 adults and 5,765 children from a number of areas in Africa and Asia. The updated review shows that using artesunate to treat people with severe malaria reduces the risk for death by 39 percent in adults and 24 percent in children, compared with quinine. In adults, deaths fell from 241 per 1,000 with quinine to 147 with artesunate. In children, deaths were reduced from 108 per 1,000 with quinine to ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria, Malaria Prevention, Malaria Prophylaxis
New Malaria Drug Proves Effective in Study of African Children
Posted 7 Nov 2010 by Drugs.com
SATURDAY, Nov. 6 – The death rate among children with severe malaria was nearly one-fourth lower when they received a new drug called artesunate than when they got the standard treatment of quinine, a new study shows. The finding suggests that artesunate should replace quinine as the malaria treatment of choice for severe malaria worldwide, the researchers said. Malaria, a disease that is transmitted via the bite of an infected mosquito, can quickly become life-threatening if left untreated, according to the World Health Organization. The new study included 5,425 children with severe falciparum malaria – the most dangerous of four types of malaria affecting humans – in nine African countries. Of the children, 2,713 were treated with artesunate and 2,713 with quinine. There were 230 deaths (8.5 percent) in the artesunate group and 297 deaths (11 percent) in the quinine group, the ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria
Mosquito Evolution May Make It Harder to Fight Malaria: Study
Posted 25 Oct 2010 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Oct. 22 – Complicating efforts to combat malaria, new research indicates that two physically identical strains of a single mosquito responsible for most disease transmissions appear to be evolving into two genetically distinct species. Two studies reported in the Oct. 21 issue of Science suggest that the evolution process is occurring faster than previously thought, and note that substantial genetic differences are already apparent. This development could undermine efforts to control mosquito population growth with strategies that may not be effective against both strains, the researchers said. "Malaria is a deadly disease that affects millions of people across the world, and amongst children in Africa, it causes one in every five deaths," George Christophides, a professor in the division of cell and molecular biology at Imperial College London in England, said in a news ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria
Scientists Create 'Malaria-Proof' Mosquito
Posted 15 Jul 2010 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, July 15 – In what might someday be a major advance against one of the world's most devastating diseases, researchers say they've created a mosquito that is unable to infect humans with malaria. The University of Arizona team reported that their genetically altered mosquitoes are immune to the malaria-causing parasite, a single-cell organism called Plasmodium. The mosquitoes used in the research were Anopheles stephensi, a species that plays a major role in malaria transmission throughout the Indian subcontinent. It may be possible someday to replace wild mosquitoes with lab-bred mosquitoes that can't infect humans with malaria, researchers said. "If you want to effectively stop the spreading of the malaria parasite, you need mosquitoes that are no less than 100 percent resistant to it. If a single parasite slips through and infects a human, the whole approach will be doomed ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria
Almost Half of Deaths in Kids Under 5 Occur in 5 Countries
Posted 12 May 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, May 11 – Infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and blood poisoning account for more than two-thirds of the 8.8 million annual deaths in kids under 5 years of age worldwide, a new report shows. Other leading causes of death for children include birth complications, lack of oxygen during birth and congenital defects. The authors of the report found that infectious diseases caused 5.97 million deaths among kids under age 5 in 2008. Pneumonia (18 percent), diarrhea (15 percent) and malaria (8 percent) accounted for the highest numbers. About 40 percent of the deaths were in infants aged no more than 27 days. Almost half of these deaths occurred in just five countries – China, Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Pakistan. Africa (4.2 million) and Southeast Asia (2.39 million) accounted for the highest numbers of deaths. Countries with high ... Read more
Related support groups: Diarrhea, Pneumonia, Malaria, Septicemia
Coartem Approved to Treat Malaria
Posted 8 Apr 2009 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, April 8 – The Novartis drug Coartem (artemether and lumefantrine) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat uncomplicated malaria in adults and children, the agency said Wednesday in a news release. Children must weigh at least five kilograms (approximately 11 pounds) to be candidates for the drug, which isn't approved to prevent malaria or treat very serious cases. Travelers from the United States to high-incidence areas are at risk of acquiring the mosquito-borne disease, which has warning signs including fever, chills and flu-like symptoms. Many areas with a high incidence of malaria report resistance to a standard treatment, a drug called chloroquine. Malaria can cause death if left untreated. Up to 500 million new cases develop each year worldwide, and about 90 percent of fatal cases are reported in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease also is ... Read more
Related support groups: Malaria
Ask a Question
Further Information
Related Condition Support Groups
Malaria Prevention, Malaria Prophylaxis, Infections
Related Drug Support Groups
doxycycline, clindamycin, Plaquenil, sulfamethoxazole, quinine, hydroxychloroquine, Doryx, Malarone, Cleocin, view more... chloroquine, Vibramycin, quinidine, Lariam, Qualaquin, Monodox, Cleocin Pediatric, artemether/lumefantrine, mefloquine, Doxy 100, Cleocin HCl, Vibra-Tabs, sulfisoxazole, Malarone Pediatric, halofantrine, Cleocin Phosphate, primaquine, Fansidar, atovaquone, Coartem, Doxy-Caps, Gantrisin Pediatric, Gantanol, Truxazole, Oraxyl, Ocudox, Plaquenil Sulfate, Quineprox, atovaquone/proguanil, QM-260, Cardioquin, Gantrisin, Halfan, Doxy 200, Aralen, pyrimethamine/sulfadoxine, Mepron, Quinora, Quinidex Extentabs, Aralen Hydrochloride, Aralen Phosphate, Quin-G, Quin-Release, Quinaglute Dura-Tabs, Doxy-D