Azithromycin for Malaria?

Malaria continues to be one of the greatest infectious disease problems in the world. Antimalarial drugs play an essential role in the treatment and control of malaria. For treatment, older drugs are limited by resistance, but artemisinin-based combination therapy remains highly effective in most areas. However, artemisinin resistance has emerged in southeast Asia, and resistance to artemisinin partner drugs is already common in many areas. In Cambodia, where resistance to both artemisinins and piperaquine is prevalent, frequent failures after treatment with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine have been seen. We can anticipate that artemisinin resistance will spread to other areas, and that resistance to artemisinins and partner drugs will seriously threaten our ability to treat malaria.