Chlorproguanil - Dapsone a new drug in the fight against malaria

Abstract

This article is a review of information on a new short acting anti-folate developed for use in treatment for non severe malaria. The information was drawn mainly from published data. This drug was developed at the time chloroquine was failing and a search for a cheap effective alternative was on. Anti folates became the drug of choice to many countries. Sulfadoxine/ pyrimethamine was the anti-folate of choice, but they had a disadvantage of having long half lives that have a high selection pressure for resistance strains. Chloroproguanil (CPG) with dapsone (DDS) are both rapidly eliminated and this is likely to prolong its effective lifetime in the treatment of malaria. Studies done in various countries in Africa have shown that CPG with DDS are effective, have rapid elimination and the resistance require more point mutation than Sulfadoxine/ pyrimethamine. Though the toxicity data is awaited from the field we can deduce from the information available that it is a safe drug and the only adverse event directly attributed to it is aneamia and this occurred in less than 1% of those studied.


African Journal of Health Sciences Vol.11(1&2) 2004: 1-8