Thai-Burma border research into malaria treatment for pregnant women #egender

New drugs, based on artemisinin combination therapies, have recently revolutionized malaria treatment, but so far they have not normally been available to women in the early stages of pregnancy because of fears they could damage the embryo.

Now a large-scale study, carried out in the Thai-Burma boder area and published in the London-based medical journal, the Lancet, has provided some reassurance that any risk of harm is outweighed by the benefits they provide.

Artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), normally the World Health Organization (WHO) drug of choice, has been found to cause miscarriage, abnormalities or foetal resorbtion in some animal studies, and so is not recommended in early pregnancy. Doctors have to fall back on older drugs – chloroquine, to which there is now widespread resistance, or quinine, which is unpleasant to take and has side-effects.

The study, carried out by the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit on the Thai-Burma border, found that there was no sign that women being treated with ACT had a higher than usual rate of birth defects.

Miscarriage rates for those treated with chloroquine was 26 percent, 27 percent for quinine and 24 percent for ACT.

To read the full article, please visit the IRIN News website.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 under E-gender.