Drug-resistant malaria in Sudan: A review of evidence and scenarios for the future.

Resistance of falciparum malaria to chloroquine (CQ) has gradually emerged in the late 1970s, reaching unacceptably high proportions over the following three decades of use as frst line treatment in Sudan. By 2004-2006 CQ was replaced by artemisinin-based combination treatment (ACTs), with combination of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) and artesunate (AS) deployed as frst-line drug against falciparum malaria. The present review follows the evolution of CQ resistance in Sudan and the available evidence on the response to the present frst-line drugs. The fndings in Sudan are analyzed in view of developments in other African countries and at the global level, with the hope of elucidating possible scenarios for the course of events in the Sudan. Northern Sudan has been one of the areas where signals indicating the emergence of drug resistant malaria parasites have frst originated in Africa. The pattern of low endemicity and low population immunity to malaria, together with massive deployment and improper use of anti-malarial drugs created the ideal environment for creation of anti-malarial drug resistance. Such an environment existed in certain areas in South East Asia that had historically been the epicenter from which falciparum malaria parasites resistant to pyrimethamine and chloroquine have spread to the rest of the world. The alarming recent reports about the emergence of artemisinin (ART) resistance in South East Asia have lead WHO to take specifc measures for prevention, early detection and containment of drug resistance. What could be applicable in Sudan in these measures is discussed here.