Saturday, October 24, 2009

Which medicine is used to treat malaria? Where are the medicines derived from?


Answers:
Malaria is derived from mala aria (Medieval Italian for "bad air") and formerly called ague or marsh fever in English, is an infectious disease which causes about 350-500 million infections with humans and approximately 1.3 - 3 million deaths annually, mainly in the tropics. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 85-90% of these fatalities. The death rate is expected to double in the next 20 years. The exact statistics are unknown because many cases occur in rural areas where people do not have access to hospitals and/or the means to afford health care. Consequently, many cases are undocumented.Malaria is caused by the protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium (of the phylum Apicomplexa), and the transmission vector for human malarial parasite is the female Anopheles mosquito. The P. falciparum variety of the parasite accounts for 80% of cases and 90% of deaths. Children under the age of five and pregnant women are the most vulnerable to the severe forms of malaria.
Treatments:There are several families of drugs used to treat malaria. Chloroquine was the antimalarial drug of choice for many years in most parts of the world. However, resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to chloroquine has spread recently from Asia to Africa, making the drug ineffective against the most dangerous Plasmodium strain in many affected regions of the world.There are several other substances which are used for treatment and, partially, for prevention (prophylaxis). Many drugs can be used for both purposes; larger doses are used to treat cases of malaria. Their deployment depends mainly on the frequency of resistant parasites in the area where the drug is used.Currently available anti-malarial drugs include:Artemether-lumefantrine (Therapy only, commercial name Coartem)
Artesunate-amodiaquine (Therapy only)
Atovaquone-proguanil, trade name Malarone (Therapy and prophylaxis)
Quinine (Therapy only)
Chloroquine (Therapy and prophylaxis; usefulness now reduced due to resistance)
Doxycycline (Therapy and prophylaxis)
Mefloquine, trade name Lariam (Therapy and prophylaxis)
Primaquine (Therapy in P. vivax and P. ovale only; not for prophylaxis)
Proguanil (Prophylaxis only)
Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (Therapy; prophylaxis for semi-immune pregnant women in endemic countries as "Intermittent Preventive Treatment" - IPT) Before antibiotics, patients with syphilis were intentionally infected with malaria to create a fever. By accurately controlling the fever with quinine, the effects of both syphilis and malaria could be avoided.Preventions and controlMethods used to prevent the spread of disease, or to protect individuals in areas where malaria is endemic, include prophylactic drugs, mosquito eradication, and the prevention of mosquito bites. There is currently no vaccine that will prevent malaria, but this is an active field of research.
Early and effective chemo-therapy for malaria has a pivotal role in reducing morbidity and mortality especially since a vaccine is unlikely to emerge within the next decade. Multidrug resistance has been reported from most parts of the world and as a result, monotherapy or some of the available combination chemotherapies for malaria are either ineffective or less effective. New antimalarial regimens are, therefore, urgently needed and antimalarial combination chemotherapy is widely advocated. Antimalarial combinations can increase efficancy, shorten duration of treatment (and hence increase compliance), and decrease the risk of resistant parasites arising through mutation during therapy.
Combination therapy with antimalarial drugs is the simultaneous use of two or more blood schizontocidal drugs with independent modes of action and different biochemical targets in the parasite. The concept of combination therapy is based on the synergistic or additive potential of two or more drugs, to improve therapeutic efficacy and also delay the development of resistance to the individual components of the combination.Artemisinin based combinations are known to improve cure rates, reduce the development of resistance and they might decrease transmission of drug-resistant parasites. The total effect of artemisinin combinations (which can be simultaneous or sequential) is to reduce the chance of parasite recrudescence, reduce the within-patient selection pressure, and prevent transmission.
malaria is treated from a special herb scientifically called quinn is im sure its derived from the bark of a apecific tree the proccessed form of the herb is called chloroqinn and its used to treat malaria..

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