Suspected Plasmodium falciparum resistance to artesunate in Cameroon: A case report

Malaria in pregnancy is associated with adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes. The first-line treatment for severe malaria in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy is parenteral artesunate, according to WHO recommendations. Resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to artesunate has not yet been noted in our country. We report a case highly suspicious of such. A pregnant woman presented with the clinical signs of malaria. After paraclinical confirmation of the diagnosis, she was admitted and injectable artesunate was given for 72 h at the recommended dosage, with antipyretic without any improvement. Artesunate was therefore replaced by parenteral quinine, with favourable evolution. Resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to artesunate might be present in our country. This patient provides a warning about possible artesunate resistance, and this calls for careful monitoring of other cases of malaria been treated with this drug to ascertain the possibility of resistant cases.

The Effect of Innovative Teach-back Tool Kit Session on the Postgraduate Nursing Students’ Knowledge About Injectable Artesunate

Background: Injectable artesunate (inj AS) is a new anti-malarial treatment recently introduced in Sudan for the treatment of severe malaria . Inj AS has demonstrated its superiority over injectable quinine in African and Asian patients. This study aimed to evaluate the outcome of innovative teach-back tool kit session on the knowledge of inj AS among the postgraduate nursing students at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. Methods: This interventional pre–posttest studyincluded30postgraduatenursing students selected though a full-coverage sampling method and meeting the selection criteria. Data were collected using standardized self-administered questionnaire after taking a written approval from the participants. The pretest included an initial assessment followed by implementation of interactive session about new anti-malaria treatment using an innovative teach-back toolkit, and the final assessment was conducted after two weeks (posttest). The collected data were then analyzed and interpreted using descriptive and inferential statistics based on the objective and hypothesis of the study. A two-tailed p-value at 0.05 was considered as the level of significance using SPSS version 20. Results: Majority of the participants were aged between 20 and 30years; of them, 26 (87%) were female and 4(13%) male, and all of them had >1year of experience. The findings of the study showed that half of the participants (15[50%]) had a good knowledge score, 12 (40%) had a poor knowledge, and 3(10%) had a very poor knowledge score in the pretest. However, the knowledge scores increased significantly to 86.7% posttest, which is very good. The overall mean of pretest knowledge scores regarding inj AS was7.4 with a statically significant difference (p=0.000). The mean score was increased to 12 with a statically significant difference posttest (p=0.000). Conclusion: There was a statistically significant improvement in the knowledge scores of the postgraduate nursing students about inj AS after the implementation of interactive teaching session using innovative teach-back tool kit. Keywords:inj artesunate, teach back-toolkit, nursing students, session