Selection of Antimalarial Drug Resistance after Intermittent Preventive Treatment of Infants and Children (IPTi/c) in Senegal

Our study investigated the possible impact of SP-IPT given to infants and children on the prevalence of SP-resistant haplotypes in the Plasmodium falciparum genes Pfdhfr and Pfdhps, comparing sites with and without IPTi/c. P. falciparum positive samples (N = 352) collected from children < 5 years were analyzed to determine the prevalence of SP resistance-related haplotypes by nested PCR followed by sequence-specific oligonucleotide probe-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The prevalence of the Pfdhfr triple mutant haplotype (CIRN) increased in both groups, but only significantly in the IPTi/c group from 41% to 65% in 2011 (P = 0.005). Conversely, the Pfdhps 437G mutation decreased in both groups from 44.6% to 28.6% (P = 0.07) and from 66.7% to 47.5% (P = 0.02) between 2010 and 2011 in the control and the IPTi/c groups, respectively. A weak trend for decreasing prevalence of quadruple mutants (triple Pfdhfr + Pfdhps 437G) was noted in both groups (P = 0.15 and P = 0.34). During the two cross-sectional surveys some significant changes were observed in the SP resistance-related genes.