The Collaboration also carries out clinical malaria research in Savannakhet Province, southern Laos, in collaboration with the Centre for Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology, Vientiane and the Savannakhet provincial malaria station. Clinical trials and malaria epidemiology studies are conducted there and are run by Dr Mayfong Mayxay, Head of Field Research, who was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship for this work. Clinical trials have provided evidence that artemisinin derivative combination therapies (ACTs) are locally appropriate treatment for Plasmodium falciparum malaria and are superior to chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine. In response to these and other trials the Government of Lao PDR changed to artemether-lumefantrine for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria in 2005.
The geographical distribution of molecular markers of Plasmodium falciparum antimalarial drug resistance across the whole of Laos, in collaboration with Professor Tim Anderson, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, Texas, USA, has recently been completed. A randomised, open comparative GCP clinical trial of artesunate+mefloquine versus dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine in the treatment of uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria (funded by MMV) has recently been completed.
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