by The Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) Artemisinin based Combination Therapy (ACT) Africa Baseline Study Group – includes Kiechel JR as co-author. BioMed Central Medicine, 2015, 13:212 DOI 10.1186/s12916-015-0445-x
Summary: Artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum has emerged in the Greater Mekong sub-region and poses a major global public health threat. Slow parasite clearance is a key clinical manifestation of reduced susceptibility to artemisinin. The three ACTs assessed in this analysis - artemether-lumefantrine, artesunate-amodiaquine, and dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine - continue to achieve rapid early parasitological clearance across the sites assessed in Sub-Saharan Africa. A threshold of 5 % day 3 parasite positivity from a minimum sample size of 50 patients provides a more sensitive benchmark in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to the current recommended threshold of 10 % to trigger further investigation of artemisinin susceptibility.
