WWARN - Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network

Newsletter - June 2011

 

Welcome to our second newsletter

This month’s malaria forum in Central Africa highlighted the need to reinforce communication and collaboration at a regional level. Co-hosted by the Central Africa Network on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CANTAM) and WWARN, we were extremely encouraged by the response from delegates.  Representatives from the research community and national malaria control programme agreed on the importance of making research and analysis tools freely available, and that data standardization are critical to enhancing our understanding of malaria resistance.

WWARN will play a key role in addressing these measures. One of our partners in the region is Professor Francine Ntoumi, Project Coordinator of CANTAM. To read an interview with Francine click here.

June also saw the opening of our third regional centre, in Dakar, Senegal covering the West Africa region. WWARN takes a field approach, working closely with researchers who will be the first to detect signs of emerging drug resistance. Using our advanced informatics platform, and in collaboration with the researchers, we will be able to assemble, validate and present evidence suggestive of antimalarial drug resistance to the appropriate agencies and ministries. None of this will be achieved without the active cooperation and support of our partners, such as CANTAM. 

 

Dr Philippe Guérin,
Executive Director, WWARN

 

News from WWARN

New collaboration to distinguish inadequate lumefantrine exposure from antimalarial resistance

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Achieving adequate antimalarial concentrations in the blood is pivotal to curing malaria. WWARN is leading the largest analysis of pooled pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) antimalarial data. In collaboration with researchers around the world, WWARN has collated and curated lumefantrine PK-PD data from around 2000 patients. The study aims to determine how often treatment failures are explained by inadequate drug exposure rather than drug resistance – and define patient factors affecting drug exposure. It also hopes to validate the use of a lumefantrine concentration at a single timepoint as a simple surrogate measure of whether drug exposure is adequate (therapeutic) or too low (sub-therapeutic).

WWARN launches new tool to monitor parasite clearance

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A new tool from WWARN could support efforts to monitor and detect early warning signs of resistance. The Parasite Clearance Estimator offers a consistent approach to monitoring parasite clearance as a measure of antimalarial efficacy. 

 

Grant Dorsey, University of California

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Professor Dorsey is an expert and prolific author on the clinical and molecular aspects of antimalarial drug resistance, epidemiology and the relationship between HIV and malaria.  He is an Associate Professor in Infectious Disease at the University of California in San Francisco. Grant has over 18 years’ experience in medicine and public health and has spent several years doing antimalarial research in Uganda. 

Building the WWARN community in Africa

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The WWARN community is set to grow as its third regional centre opens. Based in Dakar, Senegal, the West Africa Regional Centre is led by Regional Director Dr Louis Penali. Along with the centre in East Africa, the team aims to support regional cooperation across both political and geographical borders, bringing together malaria researchers and national malaria control programmes, enabling them to share data and resources.  

 

 

News In Brief

French website launch 
WWARN is pleased to announce the launch of the French language version of the WWARN website to support our many collaborators in Francophone countries around the world.

New appointments
Welcome to Dr Ruth Branston, WWARN’s Head of Operations and Development based in Oxford, and Dr Louis Penali, Regional Director of WWARN’s West Africa Regional Centre, based at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal.

Drug Quality
Delia Bethell discussed the impact and consequences of fake medicines in the Mekong region at a conference entitled ‘Counterfeiting: Fake Products, Real Dangers’. The event on April 6 was organised by the Observatory on Illegal Trafficking in Bankok, Thailand.