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Apr 9, 2009 01:00 PM | 2
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has signed off on Coartem, an anti-malaria drug whose active ingredient is a Chinese herb.
The drug, made by Swiss-based Novartis, is a combination of artemether (a derivative of the herb artemisinin) and lumefantrine (a broad-spectrum antibiotic). The three-day medication, already available in 80 other countries, cures more than 96 percent of malaria cases, including those in areas where the parasite has become resistant to chloroquine, which for decades was a widely used preventive and treatment.
“Because of concerns about drug resistance with currently available drug therapy, it will benefit patients to have another treatment option for malaria available,” Edward Cox, director of the Office of Antimicrobial Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement released after yesterday's decision.
Most malaria infections occur in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. An estimated 350 million to 500 million cases occur annually, resulting in around one million deaths, most of them in children.
The FDA approval gives military service members overseas and some 1,000 to 1,500 U.S. travelers diagnosed with malaria each year access to the drug. Coartem will become available in the U.S. in the next four to six weeks, retailing for $69.60.
Our Ask the Experts piece on artemisinin explains more about the herb and its role in Coartem.
Anopheles stephensi mosquito, which transmits malaria/CDC via Wikimedia Commons
Tags:
mosquito,
coartem,
FDA,
malaria
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2 Comments
Add CommentIf the drug coartem really works as it is claimed, then it is certainly a step ahead in treatment of malaria and specially in the present prospective of drug resistance. The other crucial aspect is wheather it will face the same fate of resistance like that of chloroquine over the due course of time has to be seen in future. But in any case if its efficacy has been proved then certainly it is commendable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCoartem is a malaria treatment both recommended and frequently used here in Ghana. People who have had malaria many times and have used this drug speak very highly of it. However, it is much, much cheaper to purchase here in Ghana. It costs less than US $10.00.
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