Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine susceptibilities and analysis of the dihydrofolate reductase and dihydropteroate synthase of Plasmodium falciparum isolates from Cote d'Ivoire

Over a 2-year study period, three methods [a test of therapeutic efficacy, an in-vitro assay, and sequencing of the parasites' dihydrofolate-reductase (dhfr) and dihydropteroate-synthase (dhps) genes] were used to monitor sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) resistance in the Plasmodium falciparum strains infecting young children near Abidjan, the largest city in Cote d'Ivoire. Overall, 118 children aged < 5 years and infected with P. falcipartan were treated with SP. Twenty-one (23.5%) of the 89 children who completed the 14 days of follow-up were categorized as therapeutic failures. When P. falcipartan isolates from the 61 children with adequate parasitaemias were investigated in the in-vitro assay, 24 (39.5%) were found to be highly resistant to pyrimethamine, each having a median inhibitory concentration (IC50) of at least 2000 nm. Polymorphism analysis of gene fragments of 118 P. falciparum isolates (one from each child enrolled in the study) revealed that 46 (39%) of the isolates had mutant dhfr and 111 (94%) had mutant dhps. The mutations mainly affected DHFR codon 108 (39% of the isolates) and DHPS codons 436 (65%), 437 (52%) and 613 (27%). Of the 37 DHFR mutant isolates from children who completed follow-up, 21 were from children with therapeutic failure, indicating that mutant DHFR was associated with resistance to pyrimethamine in vivo (kappa=0.61). A mutant dhfr genotype was also found to be strongly associated with resistance to pyrimethamine in vitro (kappa=0.79). There was, however, little evidence of an association between SP efficacy and dhps genotype (kappa=0.04). Resistance to SP appears to be an increasing problem in southern Cote d'Ivoire and one which may now justify a change away from this drug combination as the first- or second-line treatment for P. falciparum malaria in this area