Global Health Group hosts second low-dose primaquine roadmap meeting

As an FDA-approved antimalarial drug that is typically used for the radical cure of P. vivax malaria, primaquine is recently seeing renewed interest as a P. falciparum transmission blocker. While primaquine for P. vivax requires 14 days of therapy, a single low-dose of primaquine is sufficient to block P. falciparum transmission.

To better understand the opportunities and challenges to rolling out single low-dose primaquine, the Global Health Group and Malaria Centre of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine recently hosted a primaquine roadmap update meeting in London from March 18 – 19th, 2014. Malaria stakeholders convened to share progress made on the low-dose primaquine roadmap developed in 2012, and to identify key next steps for the next two years. The meeting summary reveals that while much progress has been made to fill evidence gaps and identify regulatory hurdles, there remains a need to address implementation strategies for transmission-blocking drugs. Plans to harmonize the collection of safety data through a centralized platform are underway.

View the Primaquine Roadmap Update.