Active clinical trials for "Malaria"

This study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine against uncomplicated malaria caused P. falciparum in children of 5-35 kg bodyweight.

Some antibiotics are also effective against malaria parasites. Fosmidomycin is an antibiotic that has been shown to be effective against malaria, although it cannot achieve a total cure in all patients. A previous small study has shown that in combination with clindamycin, an commonly used antibiotic, it is highly effective and safe, in asymptomatic carriers of malaria parasites. The current study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of the combination given for three days in children with uncomplicated malaria in Gabon.

Design: Single-centre Indication: Malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum Objectives: To determine and compare the efficacy of AQ treatment in young children with uncomplicated falciparum malaria in the rural and the urban study area of the Centre de Recherche en Santé de Nouna (CRSN). Population: Children aged 6-59 months with uncomplicated falciparum malaria (axillary temperature ≥ 37.5°C + ≥ 2.000 P. falciparum asexual parasites per µl blood) from the health centre situated in the villages of Bagala, Bourasso and Kemena and from Nouna town hospital outpatient department. Sample size: N=120 Treatment: All children will receive a total dose of 25 mg/kg oral AQ over a period of three days (first and second day: 10mg/kg, third day: 5mg/kg). Statistical procedures: The primary analysis parameter is the proportion of clinical failures on day 14. Secondary parameters are the rate of clinical failures on day 28 (with and without PCR correction), the rate of early clinical failures, the rate of late parasitological failures (day 14 and day 28), and the rate of adverse events. Data will be analysed in the overall group of study children and for rural (n=50) and urban (n=50) study children separately. Study duration and dates: The study will be implemented in September-December 2005.

Drugs to treat fever are widely used in children with fever. But there is a controversy about the benefit of reducing fever in children with malaria. Ibuprofen is often used to treat malarial fever. This study evaluates the capacity of ibuprofen to reduce fever in malaria. The effect of ibuprofen on fever compared to only mechanical measures is investigated in children with malaria.

Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is the current first-line therapy for uncomplicated malaria in Malawi. Significant resistance of the P. falciparum malaria parasite to this drug has led to an imminent need for the government of Malawi to identify a new first-line therapy for uncomplicated malaria and to implement that new therapy as policy. This protocol is the second of two protocols whose combined purpose is to provide efficacy and side effect data on four antimalarial drug combinations that are candidates for the next first-line therapy for uncomplicated malaria in Malawi. This protocol aims to assess the acceptability and tolerability of amodiaquine in Malawi. It is a double-blind study comparing amodiaquine plus artesunate (AQ-Art, one of the candidate combination therapies) to chlorproguanil/dapsone plus artesunate (CD-Art, another of the candidate combination therapies) in persons 5 years and older, to see if there is a higher incidence of abdominal pain and/or refusal to take the therapy in the AQ-Art group. Amodiaquine was removed from the Malawian national drug registry in 1995 because of a perceived association with abdominal pain. Although no studies were conducted to substantiate this, consensus among clinicians was that patients were refusing amodiaquine with increasing frequency, citing abdominal pain as the reason, so the drug was removed from the registry. Results from this study, along with the efficacy data from the sister protocol in children under five years of age, will help guide the National Malaria Control Program of Malawi in selecting their next first-line antimalarial therapy.

Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) is the current first-line treatment for uncomplicated malaria in Malawi. The malaria parasite P. falciparum has developed resistance to this drug so that the drug is much less effective than in previous years. This study was developed and conducted in collaboration with the National Malaria Control Programme of Malawi to assess the efficacy of four antimalarial drug combinations to provide evidence to assist the Malawian Ministry of Health in identifying and implementing as policy the next first-line antimalarial for uncomplicated malaria in Malawi. In an open, randomized trial in children under five years of age, four drug combinations, all of which are licensed in Malawi, are being assessed: amodiaquine plus sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (AQ-SP), amodiaquine plus artesunate (AQ-Art), chlorproguanil-dapsone plus artesunate (CD-Art) and lumefantrine-artemether (LA). SP is also included as a fifth arm of the study for current data on its efficacy. Data on side effects of the drugs will also be collected. The results of this study will provide some of the information necessary to guide the Malawi National Malaria Control Program in selecting its next first antimalarial treatment for uncomplicated malaria. The study adheres to the World Health Organization's 2003 standardized protocol for assessing antimalarial drug efficacy.

This open randomized, parallel group, 6 week trial in two rural outpatient clinics will compare the safety and efficacy of a six dose coartemether regimen with 3 dose artekin regimen for the treatment of acute, uncomplicated falciparum and vivax malaria in adults and children (>10kg).

The purpose of this research study is to find out how well chloroquine works as a drug to treat malaria in children, compared to the standard malaria treatment in Malawi. In preparation for a longer study of the malaria treatment medication chloroquine alone and in combination with other drugs, a shorter pre-study will be done to compare the anti-malarial effectiveness of chloroquine versus sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), the standard treatment in Malawi. Two hundred ten children, ages 6 months to 12 years, around Blantyre, Malawi, will be given standard dosing of either chloroquine or SP when they come to the Ndirande Health Centre with signs or symptoms consistent with malaria. The first 30 participants in each treatment group will remain under continuous observation at the health center so that the researchers can monitor their response to the medication until the infection goes away. The participants will be followed for 28 days to see if the the treatment works or fails.

BCG has marked immune stimulatory effects in both animal and human studies and observational studies suggest that BCG is associated with a non-specific reduction in mortality in areas with high infant and child mortality. The specific objective of the study is to examine the effect of revaccination for purified protein derivative of tuberculin (PPD) reaction, scar size, morbidity and mortality in a randomised prospective study of revaccination versus no revaccination among children 19 months of age in Guinea-Bissau. The hypothesis is that revaccination with BCG reduces childhood mortality after 19 months of age by 30%.

This study will evaluate the efficacy of the treatment recommended by the National Malaria Programme in Guinea-Bissau as compared to a higher dose of chloroquine and to another anti-malarial drug, amodiaquine. The genetic basis of the parasites for developing resistance will be examined. Children coming to Bandim Health Centre with symptoms of malaria and a positive malaria test will be included. The children will be visited and malaria films will be obtained weekly until day 35. In case of a reappearance of parasites the children will be re-treated with sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine.