Severe malaria patients in U.S. will need to switch to a new treatment

Clinicians looking to treat patients with severe malaria in the U.S. will have to start using a new drug, according to the CDC. Quinidine has traditionally been the first-line treatment — and the only intravenous malaria treatment that is FDA-approved — but the drug is no longer being offered by manufacturer Eli Lilly. Artesunate is neither FDA-approved nor commercially available, but the CDC will work with physicians seeking the drug for their patients. The drug, delivered via IV, is the WHO’s recommended first-line treatment for severe malaria. Although malaria is not endemic in the U.S., some 1,700 people get the disease each year, about a fifth of whom have severe malaria.