Salon.com Wire Story: "August 26,2005 | LONDON -- Treating adults with severe cases of malaria with the drug artesunate -- rather than quinine -- could save tens of thousands of lives in the developing world, new research suggests.
A study reported this week in The Lancet medical journal shows for the first time that artesunate is better at saving lives than the standard medication, quinine, reducing the chance of death from malaria by 35 percent.
Scientists have known for some years that the newer drug -- derived from a traditional herb that has been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years to treat fever -- works more quickly, is easier to use and has fewer side effects. But it has been unclear whether it was any better at preventing death.
In the study, a team led by Dr. Nick White at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand, compared the drugs in 1,461 adults with severe malaria being treated in hospitals in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India and Myanmar.
Half the patients were given intravenous artesunate, while the others were treated with quinine.
The researchers found that while 164, or 22 percent, of the patients on quinine died from their malaria, only 107, or 15 percent, of the patients getting artesunate died."
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