Prophylaxis of Malaria

Abstract

Travelling to a malaria endemic zone is becoming more of a problem to health authorities because of the great amount of developed resistance by the Plasmodium parasite to the known and established prophylactic antimalarial drugs. The problem is greatest with travellers who have never been exposed to the parasite before and therefore have no natural immunity against the disease. For practical purposes the problem of drug resistance is confined to Piasmodiilm faiciparum which causes the greatest mortality of all other strains. P. falciparum has developed resistance to Proguanil, Cycioguanil, Pyri- methamine, and Chloroquine. The growth of resist- ance can be attributed to the selection of existing resistant mutants through drug pressure since anti-malarials are now widely available. Various drugs have been advocated for the prophylaxis of Malaria.