May 13, 2025
Professor Kamala Thriemer has been awarded a 2024 NHMRC Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Grant for the project “An ultra-short course of primaquine for the radical cure of vivax malaria”—a major step forward in the global fight against malaria.
The newly funded four-year trial brings together a world-leading team of malaria researchers, including several Chief and Associate Investigators from the Australian Centre of Research in Malaria Elimination (ACREME): Professor Kamala Thriemer, Professor Moses Laman, Professor Ric Price, Associate Professor Rob Commons, Professor Julie Simpson, Associate Professor Angela Devine, and Associate Professor Sarah Auburn.
This international, multicentre clinical trial will evaluate a simplified, three-day primaquine regimen as an alternative to the current standard of 7 to 14 days of treatment. Plasmodium vivax malaria is notoriously difficult to eliminate due to its ability to lie dormant in the liver and cause repeated relapses. The long duration of existing treatment regimens often leads to poor adherence, reducing their effectiveness in both individual patients and broader elimination strategies. However, recent findings from a trial in children in Papua New Guinea suggest that a shorter, higher-dose course may be both safe and effective.If successful, the results from this trial are expected to directly inform World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and national malaria treatment policies.
Other investigators involved in the trial include A/Prof Brioni Moore, A/Prof Tamiru Shibiru Degaga, A/Prof Ayodhia Pitaloka, Prof Mohammad Asim Beg, A/Prof Benedikt Ley, Dr Megha Rajasekhar, Prof Richard Norman, Prof Asrat Mekuria, A/Prof Holger Unger, A/Prof Laurens Manning, Dr Ari Winasti Satyagraha, Mrs Muthoni Mwaura and Sarah Cassidy-Seyoum.