Pharmacokinetic of Mefloquine-Artesunate in Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria Infection in Pregnancy

Malaria in pregnancy is a major public health problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past decades, P. falciparum has shown increasing resistance to chloroquine and Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine, which has prompted a change in treatment approach; artemisinin containing combination therapies (ACTs) are now the standard treatment of P. falciparum malaria in areas with established resistance to traditional therapies. However, a standard approach for using ACT in pregnancy does not exist in Africa, where some countries keep on using quinine, while others allow the use of ACTs. Thus, there is need of establishing the safety and efficacy of ACTs in malaria-infected pregnant women. Since the pharmacokinetic of antimalarials may be altered during pregnancy and since available pharmacokinetic data are still somewhat limited, we propose to carry out a study confirming or disproving existing pharmacokinetic data (collected in South-East Asia), before starting any larger African efficacy and safety trials. The fixed-dose combination mefloquine-artesunate (MQ-AS), developed by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, will be used in the study, which will compare the pharmacokinetics of MQ-AS for treatment of P.falciparum in 24 pregnant women in the second and third trimesters, to the pharmacokinetics of this regimen in 24 matched non-pregnant P.falciparum infected women. The study will be carried out in Burkina Faso.