Anti-malaria drug information : Artesunat

One of my friend just contacted me to found Arsen (artesunate), she contacted all hospital in my town for looking for arsen. One of her family was in hospital due to Cerebral Malaria. Then I tried to contacted my office, because I know they should have Artesunate on stock due to their services.

Artesunate is the newest preparation for malaria treatment, but it's only knew by a few doctor in Indonesia (my country, one of malaria' endemic area). I know about this medicine when I was in Tembagapura Hospital (Freeport Indonesia, Papua) in August 2009. We use artesunate for treat patient with malaria. I saw all patient that treat with this medicine had a quick improvement, then conventional medicine that we always use in other part of Indonesia. Due to that reasons, I try to find out some articles about artesunate. One of them I found in Wikipedia.com and I translate it in English.

Artesunate
Pharmacological Properties
Artesunate has a significantly improved compared with artemisinin bioavailability. Like all artemisinin derivatives, it acts on an endogenous peroxygen which presumably infected erythrocytes for Plasmodium toxic radicals formed. The problem is the relatively short half-life. Artesunate is in the liver by the enzyme CYP3A4 metabolised.

Preparations and use
Artesunate is used mainly as a combination drug with other agents such as malaria, amodiaquine for the treatment of malaria. An Artesunate-amodiaquine combination drug (ASAQ) was developed in cooperation between the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) and Sanofi-aventis is developing and in several African countries. There are currently no Artesunate drugs approved in Europe for the ASAQ preparation but an authorization is sought, it should in the future under the brand name Coarsucam ®. Other combinations of Artesunate with Mefloquin are currently in development.

The focus for the application of Artesunate is the treatment of uncomplicated malaria tropica, Plasmodium in particular, against the other drugs such as chloroquine resistant. The World Health Organization does not recommend the use as a starting Monosubstanz to minimize the risk of resistance to artemisinin derivatives to decrease.