New Malaria Drug Found to Be as Effective as Quinine
From Times Staff and wire reports
A new malaria drug is just as effective as quinine, which is becoming less potent in some parts of the world as the malaria parasite grows less sensitive to it.
So concluded the largest controlled studies yet of the drug, artemether, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The first study involved children in Gambia in western Africa and found that 80% survived whether given artemether or quinine. In the second study, each drug was successful in treating about 85% of seriously ill adults in Vietnam..
Malaria kills 1.5 million to 2.7 million people annually in developing countries.
