Review
Intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy in Africa: What's new, what's needed?
1 National institute for Medical Research, Mwanza Centre, PO Box 1462, Mwanza, Tanzania
2 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK
Malaria Journal 2007, 6:16 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-6-16
Published: 16 February 2007Abstract
Falciparum malaria is an important cause of maternal, perinatal and neonatal morbidity in high transmission settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. Intermittent preventive treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP-IPT) has proven efficacious in reducing the burden of pregnancy-associated malaria but increasing levels of parasite resistance mean that the benefits of national SP-IPT programmes may soon be seriously undermined in much of the region. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop alternative drug regimens for IPT in pregnancy. This paper reviews published safety and efficacy data on various antimalarials and proposes several candidate combination regimens for assessment in phase II/III clinical trials.
