New malaria drug excites

Lastman Muthko lies at a Mdecins Sans Frontires hospital in the Upper Nile in South Sudan in July.(Nichole Sobecki, AFP)

A single anti-malarial pill with no side effects that blocks transmission of the killer disease could soon be available, University of Cape Town scientists announced this week.

Based on a recently discovered chemical compound, the cure could deal with many of the shortcomings that have prevented an effective treatment for the infectious disease that, according to the World Health Organisation, kills a child in Africa every minute.

Professor Kelly Chibale, project leader at the universitys Drug Discovery and Development Centre, said very low doses of the treatment had proved effective in animal tests. It was now ready for preclinical development and human clinical trials were expected to start next year.

A new drug was needed because the treatments currently available have shortcomings that range from negative side effects to resistance and noncompliance, he said. Our compound has the potential to kill off a number of drug-resistant strains of malaria in Africa and Asia, as well as improve compliance, given the potential single-dose administration.

Named the MMV390048 molecule, the compound was designed, synthesised and evaluated in a record 18 months in the centres laboratory from commercially available chemicals. The project entailed the collaboration of researchers from the Medicines for Malaria Venture in Switzerland, the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and Monash University in Australia.

Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor praised it as an African solution in the global race to combat malaria that could save millions of lives in sub-Saharan Africa. Her department invested R25-million in the programme.

Chibale explained that the malaria parasites transmitted by female anopheles mosquitoes attack the liver and then invade the red blood cells, which is when symptoms such as fever manifest. Mosquitoes that feed on the infected blood then spread the disease.

Resistance Most antimalarial treatments are aimed at controlling the disease once it has passed from the liver to the blood stream. The problem is that they require up to four daily doses of tablets, which is particularly problematic for poor people often also burdened with treatment regimes for HIV and tuberculosis.

People often stop taking the malaria drugs when they start feeling better and this contributes to parasites developing resistance to the drugs. These are some of the reasons why we need a single oral dosage with no side effects, Chibale said.

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New malaria drug excites