ArticleBMC infectious diseases2022
Biennial surveillance of Plasmodium falciparum anti-malarial drug resistance markers in Democratic Republic of Congo, 2017 and 2019.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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9 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of Molecular Markers of Resistance to Antimalarial Drugs Three Years After Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention in Sierra Leone.Gates open research · 2025Trial
- Efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine and dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine and prevalence of molecular markers of anti-malarial drug resistance in children in Togo in 2021.Malaria journal · 2024Trial
- Prevalence of molecular markers related to artemisinin partial resistance and ACT partner drug resistance in the Plasmodium falciparum population in Kongo Central, DRC.Malaria journal · 2026Article
- Cross-border molecular epidemiology of Plasmodium falciparum drug susceptibility: insights from the Uganda-Democratic Republic of the Congo border.Malaria journal · 2026Article
- Polymorphisms in the Pfcrt, Pfmdr1, and Pfk13 genes of Plasmodium falciparum isolates from southern Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- An overview of artemisinin-resistant malaria and associated Pfk13 gene mutations in Central Africa.Parasitology research · 2024Review
- Sampling for malaria molecular surveillance.Trends in parasitology · 2023Review
- Therapeutic efficacy of artesunate-amodiaquine and artemether-lumefantrine for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Chad: clinical and genetic surveillance.Malaria journal · 2023Article
- Molecular surveillance of artemisinin resistance-related Pfk13 and pfcrt polymorphisms in imported Plasmodium falciparum isolates reported in eastern China from 2015 to 2019.Malaria journal · 2022Article
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11 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
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Abstract
backgroundBecause of the loss of chloroquine (CQ) effectiveness, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s malaria treatment policy replaced CQ by sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) as first-line treatment of uncomplicated malaria in 2003, which in turn was replaced by artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT) in 2005. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends monitoring of anti-malarial drug resistance every 2 years. The study aimed to provide baseline data for biennial molecular surveillance of anti-malarial drug resistance by comparing data from a study conducted in 2019 to previously published data from a similar study conducted in 2017 in the DRC.
methodsFrom July to November 2019, a cross-sectional study was conducted in ten sites which were previously selected for a similar study conducted in 2017 across the DRC. P. falciparum malaria was diagnosed by a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) or by microscopy and dried blood samples (DBS) were taken from patients who had a positive test. Segments of interest in pfcrt and pfk13 genes were amplified by conventional PCR before sequencing.
resultsOut of 1087 enrolled patients, 906 (83.3%) were PCR-confirmed for P. falciparum. Like in the 2017-study, none of the mutations known to be associated with Artemisinine (ART) resistance in Southeast Asia was detected. However, non-synonymous (NS) mutations with unknown functions were observed among which, A578S was detected in both 2017 and 2019-studies. The overall prevalence of pfcrt-K76T mutation that confers CQ-resistance was 22.7% in 2019-study compared to 28.5% in 2017-study (p-value = 0.069), but there was high variability between sites in the two studies. Like in 2017-study, the pfcrt 72-76 SVMNT haplotype associated with resistance to amodiaquine was not detected.
conclusionThe study reported, within 2 years, the non-presence of molecular markers currently known to be associated with resistance to ART and to AQ in P. falciparum isolated in the DRC. However, the presence of polymorphisms with as-yet unknown functions was observed, requiring further characterization. Moreover, an overall decrease in the prevalence of CQ-resistance marker was observed in the DRC, but this prevalence remained highly variable from region to region.
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