Longitudinal study on Plasmodium falciparum gametocyte carriage following artemether-lumefantrine administration in a cohort of children aged 12–47 months living in Western Kenya, a high transmission area

Malaria Journal

Research

Bernhards Ogutu¹  Joan Mativo¹  Ben Andagalu¹  Edwin Kamau¹ 

[1] Department of Emerging Infectious Diseases-Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DEID-GEIS) Program, United States Army Medical Research Unit-Kenya (USAMRU-K), Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Walter Reed Project, P.O. Box 54, 40100, Kisumu, Kenya;

关键词: Gametocytes;    Western Kenya;    Longitudinal study;    Asymptomatic children;    Artemether-lumefantrine;    Epidemiological study;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-13-265

 received in 2014-01-17, accepted in 2014-07-05,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe effects that artemether-lumefantrine (AL) has on gametocyte dynamics in the short-term have recently been described. However there is limited long-term longitudinal data on the effect of AL on gametocyte dynamics in asymptomatic children.MethodsAn epidemiological study was conducted in Kombewa, Western Kenya, in which 270 asymptomatic children aged between 12 and 47 months were enrolled. The subjects were randomized to receive either a course of AL or placebo at enrolment. Active follow-up was conducted for one year.ResultsThe gametocyte prevalence and density dynamics throughout the study period mirrored that of the asexual forms. The proportion of initially parasitaemic subjects becoming gametocytaemic was significantly lower in the AL arm for the first 12 weeks following randomization. The geometric mean gametocyte density was lower in the AL arm for 2 weeks following randomization. None of the variables of interest had a statistically significant effect on the duration of gametocytaemia. There is no effect seen in subjects who are not parasitaemic at the time of drug administration.ConclusionsThe treatment of asymptomatic parasitaemic subjects with AL results in a significant reduction in the proportion of subjects who become gametocytaemic for at least 12 weeks.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Andagalu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.