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Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency
Malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax threatens over 2 billion people globally and sickens tens of millions annually. Recent clinical evidence discredits the long-held notion of this infection as intrinsically benign revealing an often threatening course associated with mortality. Most acute attacks by...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2015
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26652887 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0531-0 |
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author | Baird, J. Kevin |
author_facet | Baird, J. Kevin |
author_sort | Baird, J. Kevin |
collection | PubMed |
description | Malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax threatens over 2 billion people globally and sickens tens of millions annually. Recent clinical evidence discredits the long-held notion of this infection as intrinsically benign revealing an often threatening course associated with mortality. Most acute attacks by this species derive from latent forms in the human liver called hypnozoites. Radical cure for P. vivax malaria includes therapy aimed both at the acute attack (blood schizontocidal) and against future attacks (hypnozoitocidal). The only hypnozoitocide available is primaquine, a drug causing life-threatening acute hemolytic anemia in patients with the inherited blood disorder glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. This disorder affects 400 million people worldwide, at an average prevalence of 8 % in malaria-endemic nations. In the absence of certain knowledge regarding the G6PD status of patients infected by P. vivax, providers must choose between the risk of harm caused by primaquine and that caused by the parasite by withholding therapy. Resolving this dilemma requires the availability of point-of-care G6PD diagnostics practical for use in the impoverished rural tropics where the vast majority of malaria patients seek care. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4677444 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46774442015-12-15 Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency Baird, J. Kevin BMC Med Commentary Malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax threatens over 2 billion people globally and sickens tens of millions annually. Recent clinical evidence discredits the long-held notion of this infection as intrinsically benign revealing an often threatening course associated with mortality. Most acute attacks by this species derive from latent forms in the human liver called hypnozoites. Radical cure for P. vivax malaria includes therapy aimed both at the acute attack (blood schizontocidal) and against future attacks (hypnozoitocidal). The only hypnozoitocide available is primaquine, a drug causing life-threatening acute hemolytic anemia in patients with the inherited blood disorder glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. This disorder affects 400 million people worldwide, at an average prevalence of 8 % in malaria-endemic nations. In the absence of certain knowledge regarding the G6PD status of patients infected by P. vivax, providers must choose between the risk of harm caused by primaquine and that caused by the parasite by withholding therapy. Resolving this dilemma requires the availability of point-of-care G6PD diagnostics practical for use in the impoverished rural tropics where the vast majority of malaria patients seek care. BioMed Central 2015-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4677444/ /pubmed/26652887 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0531-0 Text en © Baird. 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Commentary Baird, J. Kevin Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
title | Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
title_full | Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
title_fullStr | Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
title_full_unstemmed | Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
title_short | Point-of-care G6PD diagnostics for Plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
title_sort | point-of-care g6pd diagnostics for plasmodium vivax malaria is a clinical and public health urgency |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677444/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26652887 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0531-0 |
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