Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Aug 2014)

Plasmodium vivax malaria elimination: should innovative ideas from the past be revisited?

  • Fernando Fonseca Val,
  • Vanderson Souza Sampaio,
  • Maria Belén Cassera,
  • Raquel Tapajós Andrade,
  • Pedro Luiz Tauil,
  • Wuelton Marcelo Monteiro,
  • Marcus Vinícius Guimarães Lacerda

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/0074-0276140240
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 109, no. 5
pp. 522 – 524

Abstract

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In the 1950s, the strategy of adding chloroquine to food salt as a prophylaxis against malaria was considered to be a successful tool. However, with the development of Plasmodium resistance in the Brazilian Amazon, this control strategy was abandoned. More than 50 years later, asexual stage resistance can be avoided by screening for antimalarial drugs that have a selective action against gametocytes, thus old prophylactic measures can be revisited. The efficacy of the old methods should be tested as complementary tools for the elimination of malaria.

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