E-drug: Re: Hard facts re malaria prophylaxis (1)
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Dear Andrew
BMJ 1992 305 (741 - 743)
Lewis et al: Severity of imported malaria: effect of taking
antimalarial prophylaxis
concluded that "prior chemoprophylaxis led to a reduction in severity
of falciparum malaria"
I am not aware of mortality studies of standy therapy, and personally
do not consider any antimalarial safe and effective enough to recommend for
patients to use without medical supervision.
also see
Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygeine 1994, 97, 151-160
Schlagenhauf , Steffen : Standby treatment of malaria in travellers:
a review
"it can be argued that diagnosis of malaria is difficult, even for
medical professionals, and that reserve medication is likely to be
misused by inexperienced travellers ........The inappropriate use of
standby therapy may expose persons without malaria to significant
drug risk............prophylaxis remains the safest choice for most
travellers to areas of high transmission when the stay in a malarial
area is longer than 1 week"
Kind regards