Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics and findings of antimalarial
drug efficacy studies conducted in Ethiopia and to use the findings to formulate
recommendations for antimalarial drug efficacy monitoring and use of evidence to
inform antimalarial treatment policy for the Ethiopian setting.
This study reviewed 44 antimalarial efficacy studies conducted in Ethiopia from 1974 to
2011. The analysis of results indicated that chloroquine as the first-line antimalarial drug
for the treatment of malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum had a 22% therapeutic
failure in 1985. Chloroquine was replaced with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in 1998,
more than 12 years later, when its therapeutic failure had reached 65%. Sulfadoxinepyrimethamine
at the time of its introduction had a treatment failure of 7.7%; it was
replaced after seven years in 2004 by artemether-lumefantrine; by then its treatment
failure had reached 36%.