Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis received regulatory approval on July 8 for the first malaria treatment specifically designed for newborns and very young infants. The new formulation, a version of its existing drug Coartem, was approved by Swissmedic for use in babies weighing under 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds), a milestone most reach by around two months.
Until now, infants with malaria were treated using adjusted doses of drugs meant for older children, increasing the risk of improper dosing. Novartis expects regulatory approval from eight African countries in the coming weeks and plans to distribute the treatment on a largely not-for-profit basis.
The breakthrough comes amid growing concern over malaria’s deadly impact on young children. In 2023, the disease caused an estimated 597,000 deaths globally, most in Africa, with children under five accounting for nearly three-quarters of those fatalities, according to the World Health Organization.
If it seems to you that more and more people are falling sick with malaria and dengue fever than in the past, you are not imagining it. Mosquito-borne illnesses are indeed on the rise, and they are affecting more and more people in countries across the globe. In the search to understand what may be prompting this troublesome development, scientists are turning their attention to climate change as an important contributing factor. Indeed, rising temperatures, increased flooding, and environmental pollution have all been shown to play a role in the increasing incidence of mosquito-borne illness.
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