Emergence of Indigenous Artemisinin-Resistant Plasmodium falciparum in Africa

• Published in: The New England journal of medicine Vol. 376; no. 10; pp. 991 - 993
• Main Authors: Lu, Feng, Culleton, Richard, Zhang, Meihua, Ramaprasad, Abhinay, von Seidlein, Lorenz, Zhou, Huayun, Zhu, Guoding, Tang, Jianxia, Liu, Yaobao, Wang, Weiming, Cao, Yuanyuan, Xu, Sui, Gu, Yaping, Li, Julin, Zhang, Chao, Gao, Qi, Menard, Didier, Pain, Arnab, Yang, Haitao, Zhang, Qingfeng, Cao, Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Massachusetts Medical Society 09.03.2017
• Subjects: Adult; Africa; Antimalarials; Antimalarials - therapeutic use; Artemisinin; Artemisinins; Artemisinins - therapeutic use; Asia, Southeastern; Drug Resistance; Drug Therapy, Combination; Equatorial Guinea; Erythrocytes; Grants; Human health and pathology; Humans; Infectious diseases; Life Sciences; Malaria; Malaria, Falciparum; Malaria, Falciparum - drug therapy; Malaria, Falciparum - transmission; Male; Mutation; Papua New Guinea; Parasitemia; Parasites; Plasmodium falciparum; Plasmodium falciparum - drug effects; Plasmodium falciparum - genetics; Plasmodium falciparum - isolation & purification; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Principal components analysis; Quinolines; Quinolines - therapeutic use; R&D; Research & development; Science; Southeast Asia; Equatorial Guinea; China; Japan; Africa
• ISSN: 0028-4793; 1533-4406
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc1612765

The emergence of artemisinin resistance in Plasmodium falciparum has threatened the effectiveness of malaria treatment in Southeast Asia. In this report, such resistance has been observed in a patient who was working in Equatorial Guinea. To the Editor: Plasmodium falciparum has developed resistance to artemisinin in many countries in Southeast Asia. 1 , 2 Artemisinin combination therapy is the first-line treatment for malaria in the majority of countries in which the disease is endemic, and its efficacy is particularly important in Africa, where malaria is the most widespread. 3 We report here an artemisinin-resistant strain of P. falciparum that was contracted in Africa. On January 28, 2013, falciparum malaria was diagnosed in a 43-year-old man (identified here as CWX) at a hospital in Jiangsu Province, China. The patient had returned to China on December 3, 2012, after working . . .