[Effects on Health] Uganda study reveals ways to reduce malaria among HIV positive people

from African News Dimension

By Gerald Businge

A study conducted in Uganda has revealed that the combined use of antiretroviral drugs, the antibiotic cotrimoxazole and insecticide-treated nets could reduce the incidence of malaria among HIV-positive people by up to 95 percent.

A study conducted in Uganda has revealed that the combined use of antiretroviral drugs, the antibiotic cotrimoxazole and insecticide-treated nets could reduce the incidence of malaria among HIV-positive people by up to 95 percent.

The study was published in the April 15, 2006 issue of the journal Lance.

Jonathan Mermin of the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda, and colleagues looked at how individual and combined treatments for malaria affected about 1,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda.

The researchers found that cotrimoxazole-an antibiotic widely used among HIV-positive people worldwide reduced malaria incidence among the study participants by 76%.

Also, cotrimoxazole taken with antiretroviral drugs reduced incidence by 92%, and that the combination of the two drugs cut incidence by up to 95% when patients also used Insecticide Treated Nets.

The researchers said the antiretroviral do not have any effect on the malaria parasite but strengthened the participants' immune systems.

Mermin said that although these interventions work separately, the prime message is that together they are associated with a 95% reduction in malaria.

He added that as a result malaria becomes a rare event among this population whereas before the interventions it was quite common.

According to Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, HIV-positive people are more susceptible to opportunistic diseases such as malaria, which also can be more severe in people living with HIV.