Oral Chloroquine in the treatment of cerebral malaria in Ghanaian Children
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Date
2000-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ghana Medical Journal
Abstract
The usefulness of chloroquine as the first line drug
for the treatment of acute simple and complicated
malaria has been threatened in many Sub-Saharan
African countries by the emergency of P. falciparum
resistant to chloroquine. In Ghana, anecdotal
and published reports suggested that resistance was
becoming a major clinical problem, although it
remained the first line treatment for simple and
complicated malaria including cerebral malaria.
This study was undertaken in 1997 to determine the
effectiveness of chloroquine in cerebral malaria.
Between July and August 1997, 196 children with
cerebral malaria were admitted to the Children's
Emergency Ward of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital,
Accra. Mortality was 15.3%. Eighty-eight
treated initially with chloroquine were studied to
Day 7 or longer. Thirty-one of 60 (52%) children
tested had parasites in their peripheral blood film at
Day 3. In 3 (5%) the parasitaemia was >25% of the
Day zero value (R11 resistance) but 2 of these were
well. Taking clinical parameters such as fever and
worsening coma score into consideration early
treatment failure occurred in 10 patients (11.4%)
and these had their treatment changed 10 amodiaquine.
The results indicate that resistance to chloroquine
is demonstrably increasing
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Chloroquine, cerebral malaria, quinine, parasitaemia