| From the WHO's "Guidelines for the treatment of malaria", third edition [1]: "Radical cure. This term refers to both cure of blood-stage infection and prevention
of relapses by killing hypnozoites (in P. vivax and P. ovale infections only)." (p. 4) "The objective of treating malaria caused by P. vivax and P. ovale is to cure both
blood-stage and liver-stage infections (called radical cure), thereby preventing
recrudescence and relapse, respectively." (p. 61) "The recommended treatment for radical cure of P. ovale relapsing malaria is the same as that for P. vivax, i.e. ACT or chloroquine combined with primaquine (total dose, 3.5 mg base/kg bw). [...] P. malariae and P. knowlesi do not form hypnozoites and so do not require radical cure with primaquine." (p. 290) There's nothing there about P. falciparum, the major malaria parasite, but my understanding is that that also doesn't have a hypnozoite stage. A recent paper "Challenges for achieving safe and effective radical cure of Plasmodium vivax" [2] suggests that this approach is well-accepted, but not yet a slam-dunk in the field. [1] http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/162441/1/9789241549... [2] https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1... |