Government introduces new drug for malaria in resistant areas
Government introduces new drug for malaria in resistant areas
Leony Aurora , The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has introduced a new drug to counter malaria
nationwide, starting with 14 regencies and municipalities where
parasites causing the disease have been found resistant to the
medication used over the last decade.
Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi said after opening a workshop
to introduce the new drug to health agencies on Monday that
plasmodium falciparum, one of the types of malaria, had mutated
because of indisciplined usage of the currently-used drug
chloroquine, locally known as kluorokin.
"For example, they (patients) should take three tablets at
once, but they take only one, three times a day," said the
minister.
The new drug artemisinin was imported from China, said Sujudi.
"As it is produced from plants, we are conducting a feasibility
study on the cultivation of such plants here in Indonesia," he
added.
The detected resistant regencies and municipalities are
Simaulue in Aceh, South Lampung in Lampung, Kulonprogo in
Yogyakarta, Purworejo and Banjarnegara in Central Java, Landak in
West Kalimantan, Pasir in East Kalimantan, East Sumba and Alor in
East Nusa Tenggara, Central Halmahera in North Maluku, Minahasa
in North Sulawesi, Mimika in Central Irian Jaya and Jayapura
(both the regency and the municipality) in Papua.
Two other provinces that are predicted to face the same
problem are Maluku and Jakarta, but no solid proof has been
established yet to confirm this.
"We are concerned that non-resistant areas will become
resistant soon because of people's high mobility," said Director
of Communicable Diseases Umar Fahmi Achmadi.
Two areas, Banjarnegara and East Sumba, had conducted pilot
projects on the use of a combination of artesunate, which
contains artemisinin, and amodiaquine, and they showed good
results, Achmadi added.
According to a preliminary report on the pilot project in East
Sumba, 94.4 percent of the 21 patients on which the medication
was tried recovered. Side effects caused by the drugs include
nausea and headaches.
Achmadi said that in the future, the usage of drugs containing
artemisinin would be supervised by village malaria monitoring
agents or public health centers. Regions will be urged to
rejuvenate their inactive or defunct malaria monitoring agencies,
he added.
For malaria, the government has set a target to cut the
mosquito-borne disease's incidence rate to half of the base line
-- the rate in 2000 -- by 2005. The government has allocated Rp
30 billion (US$3.49 million) this year for malaria eradication.
The Malaria incidence rate declined from 0.81 per 1,000
population in Java and 31.09 per 1,000 outside Java in 2000 to
0.47 per 1,000 population and 22.3 per 1,000 respectively in
2002.
Nevertheless, Indonesia has seen better times in malaria
management. In 1997, the incidence rate in Java stood at 0.12 per
1000 population and outside Java at 16.06 per 1,000.