Nutritional Advice El Mondo
Objectives:
Emergence of Plasmodium falciparum resistance to artemisinin and its derivatives poses a threat to the global effort to control malaria. The emergence of anti-malarial resistance has become a great public health challenge and continues to be a leading threat to ongoing malaria control efforts. Therefore, this review article has been conducted.
What is the efficacy of dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHA-PQ) compared to artemether-lumefantrine (AL) for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria among children in Africa?
Study design:
This review article included 25 studies which involved a total of 13,198 participants.
Results and conclusions:
The investigators found PCR-unadjusted treatment failure in children aged between 6 months and 15 years was significantly lower in the dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine treatment arm on day 28 than that of artemether-lumefantrine [RR = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.08 to 0.26, I2 = 0%, studies = 4, participants = 1,302, high quality of evidence].
The investigators found, consistently, the PCR-adjusted treatment failure was significantly lower with the dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine treatment group on day 28 [RR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.29 to 0.68, I2 = 51%, studies = 16, participants = 8,508, high quality of evidence] and on day 42 [RR = 0.60, 95% CI =0.47 to 0.78, I2 = 0%, studies = 17, participants = 5,959, high quality of evidence].
However, the efficacy was ≥ 95% in both treatment groups on day 28.
The investigators concluded that dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine reduces new infection and recrudescence (a new outbreak after a period of abatement or inactivity) on days 28 and 42 more than artemether-lumefantrine. This may trigger dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine to become a first-line treatment option.
Original title:
Efficacy of dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine versus artemether-lumefantrine for the treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria among children in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized control trials by Assefa DG, Yismaw G and Makonnen E.
Link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8359548/
Additional information of El Mondo:
Find more information/studies on RCTs/cohort/significantly/review article, malaria and malnutrition right here.