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Anti-Malarial Drug Shows Promise in Human Study

posted by mrpg on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the good-news dept.

RandomFactor writes:

According to research published March 11 in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, the experimental drug DSM265 cured seven volunteers of infection by Plasmodium falciparum (the deadliest of the five human infecting Malaria parasite species) in a clinical study using a single oral dose.

The study confirmed findings of earlier studies. Only minor effects (abdominal tenderness, skin rash, itching) were observed in the previous or current studies.

The single dose aspect is crucial because currently,

it takes three days of combination therapy to cure malaria. "A single dose cure would provide a treatment that could improve compliance, reduce development of resistance, and eventually contribute to the eradication of this disease," said coauthor Jörg Möhrle,... Associate Professor of Infection Biology and Epidemiology, University of Basel, Switzerland.

Work is ongoing to improve the formulation of DSM265 and find a companion drug.

Cure notwithstanding, a companion drug is needed to prevent development of resistance. Resistance is a numbers game, caused by the emergence of random mutations that block a drug's action. The chance of random mutations arising concurrently to block both drugs' action is vanishingly small.

The end goal, of course, is to eradicate the parasite completely. Malaria causes over 200 million infections annually and kills between half and three-quarters of a million humans per year.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:41AM (5 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:41AM (#813660) Journal

    But these "human trials" fail to answer the important question. Does it work in rats in a laboratory setting?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:51AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:51AM (#813663)

    They don't even measure the right thing in these trials:

    Malaria parasite clearance rates estimated from patients' blood following ACT treatment have been widely adopted as a measure of drug effectiveness and as surveillance tools for detecting the presence of potential artemisinin resistance. This metric has not been investigated in detail, nor have its properties or potential shortcomings been identified. Herein, the pharmacology of drug treatment, parasite biology, and human immunity are combined to investigate the dynamics of parasite clearance following ACT. This approach parsimoniously recovers the principal clinical features and dynamics of clearance. Human immunity is the primary determinant of clearance rates, unless or until artemisinin killing has fallen to near-ineffective levels. Clearance rates are therefore highly insensitive metrics for surveillance that may lead to overconfidence, as even quite substantial reductions in drug sensitivity may not be detected as lower clearance rates. Equally serious is the use of clearance rates to quantify the impact of ACT regimen changes, as this strategy will plausibly miss even very substantial increases in drug effectiveness. In particular, the malaria community may be missing the opportunity to dramatically increase ACT effectiveness through regimen changes, particularly through a switch to twice-daily regimens and/or increases in artemisinin dosing levels. The malaria community therefore appears overreliant on a single metric of drug effectiveness, the parasite clearance rate, that has significant and serious shortcomings.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4576129/ [nih.gov]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @11:30AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @11:30AM (#813673)

      Righto. Americans bitching of inconsequentials but, when it comes down to buy it, they'll end paying 3/2 times more than the Switzers for the drug [commonwealthfund.org]. And, by Jove, they like it!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @12:02PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @12:02PM (#813685)

        Have you ever watched TV in America? It is 90% commercials for crappy food (candy and fast food) followed by commercials for diabetes, etc medications.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:08PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:08PM (#813820) Journal

    these "human trials" fail to answer the important question

    The real important question, to spread all over the intarwebs is: does it cause autism?

    --
    The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @07:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @07:57PM (#813900)

    Is is more effective than quinine?