Principles for Slowing Artemisinin Resistance in Africa

Over the past 25 years, progress in malaria control reduced the per-capita death rate from malaria by a factor of three. Despite this, malaria continued to cause around 250 million cases and 600,000 deaths annually, mostly among African children under five. The most urgent near-term threat was the rise in treatment failures due to the spread of partially artemisinin-resistant parasites and reduced budgets for purchasing ACTs. High ACT treatment failure rates, about 15%, had been observed in Uganda, with similar issues likely to emerge in other regions where pfkelch13 mutants were spreading. Dr. Boni presented a malaria modeling framework incorporating recently spreading ART-R genotypes in East Africa and shared country-specific results for Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania, outlining policies to slow the spread of resistant parasites.