Abstract
SOME preliminary results of the effects of paludrine, the new synthetic antimalarial drug (see Nature, 156, 596 ; 1945 ; and 157, 128 ; 1946), are reported in the Lancet (Feb. 23, p. 278). Brigadier Hamilton Fairley and his colleagues in Australia have fully confirmed the results of studies made in England, and their work indicates that small daily doses of paludrine effectively suppress both benign tertian and malignant tertian malaria. Benign tertian malaria, however, developed in some subjects who were receiving daily doses of paludrine for three weeks after the last bites of the infected mosquitoes. A single dose of paludrine given weekly for an indefinite time after the primary attack of malaria has been controlled will prevent relapses of benign tertian malaria until it is eradicated. The fact that paludrine is an effective clinical cure of attacks of benign tertian, malignant tertian and quartan malaria was also confirmed. Paludrine did not, however, prevent the production of gametocytes of either Plasmodium vivax (benign tertian malaria) or P. falciparum (malignant tertian malaria), the structure and number of which were not materially altered by it. Nevertheless, the gametocytes did not mature when they were taken in by mosquitoes from subjects who were receiving paludrine, although, a week after the drug was discontinued, the gametocytes could infect mosquitoes. In addition to this, when mosquitoes were allowed to feed on a subject who was taking paludrine and then were allowed to complete their meal upon a subject who was harbouring gametocytes but was not taking paludrine, the mosquitoes did not become infected. This suggests, the Lancet says, that paludrine acts upon the early stages of development of the malarial parasites in the mosquito. This action on the developmental stages in the mosquito did not occur when the mosquito had been infected some days before the meal of blood taken from the subject who was receiving paludrine. One interesting result obtained was the observation that 200 c.c. of blood taken from subjects known to be infected with benign tertian malaria did not infect volunteers while the donors were taking paludrine. Quinine and mepacrine will not prevent infection in similar circumstances. A re-examination of the toxicity of paludrine has shown that, within the wide range of effective dosage, its toxicity is negligible. The volunteers from the Australian Forces who allowed themselves to be experimentally infected and so made possible the work at the Australian Army Medical Research Institute at Cairns, Queensland, deserve our deepest gratitude.
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Field Tests of Paludrine. Nature 157, 580 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157580b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157580b0