Malaria cured by one-dose treatment

U.S. regulators have approved a simple, one-dose treatment to prevent relapses of Plasmodium vivax malaria. One dose of GlaxoSmithKline’s Krintafel (tafenoquine) prevented relapses in three-in-four patients


1 Mosquito infected with Plasmodium vivax parasite bites human. Spores from mosquito saliva enter bloodstream

Small blood
vessels in skin

2 Spores invade liver cells

3 Within one to three weeks spores multiply producing tens of thousands of merozoites

4 Merozoites infect red blood cells

5 When single parasite enters blood cell it begins to asexually replicate, producing schizonts which contain more merozoites

6 Stuffed with malaria parasites, red blood cell bursts, schizonts spew out their contents. Merozoites go on to invade other blood cells

7 Krintafel: Single 300mg dose of drug blocks dormant form of P. vivax in liver, reducing risk of recurrence

P. vivax malaria parasite can lie dormant in liver for year or more
Schizont
LIVER

LIVER
Hypnozoites
Dormant form of parasite


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Sources: GlaxoSmithKline, Making Malaria History 
Picture: CDC
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