Therapeutic response of multidrug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax to chloroquine and sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine in southern Papua, Indonesia

To determine the level of antimalarial drug resistance in southern Papua, Indonesia, we assessed the therapeutic efficacy of chloroquine plus sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine (CQ+SP) for Plasmodium falciparum infections as well as CQ monotherapy for P. vivax infections. Patients with P. falciparum failing therapy were re-treated with unsupervised quinine ± doxycycline therapy and those with P. vivax with either unsupervised quinine ± doxycycline or amodiaquine. In total, 143 patients were enrolled in the study (103 treated with CQ+SP and 40 with CQ). Early treatment failures occurred in four patients (4%) with P. falciparum and six patients (15%) with P. vivax. The failure rate by Day 28 for P. vivax was 65% (95% CI 49–81). After PCR correction for re-infections, the Day 42 recrudescence rate for P. falciparum infections was 48% (95% CI 31–65). Re-treatment with unsupervised quinine ± doxycycline resulted in further recurrence of malaria in 48% (95% CI 31–65) of P. falciparum infections and 70% (95% CI 37–100) of P. vivax infections. Eleven patients with recurrent P. vivax were re-treated with amodiaquine; there were no early or late treatment failures. In southern Papua, a high prevalence of drug resistance of P. falciparum and P. vivax exists both to first- and second-line therapies. Preliminary data indicate that amodiaquine retains superior efficacy compared with CQ for CQ-resistant P. vivax.