Molecular analysis of Plasmodium falciparum from drug treatment failure patients in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

A study was conducted in Papua New Guinea to analyze Plasmodium falciparum drug resistance polymorphisms in patients presenting with resistant malaria. One hundred ninety-nine P. falciparum-positive patients were recruited at two sites, Madang and Maprik. Exposure to the 4-aminoquinolines chloroquine and amodiaquine was uniformly high, at 84% overall. However, 59% of these were taken in various combinations of sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine and/or primaquine and/or quinine. Two markers 4-aminoquinoline resistance. P. falciparum. chloroquine resistance transporter 76T and P. falciparum multidrug resistance 1, were fixed in the population and two markers for pyrimethamine resistance, dihydrofolate ..