In Vitro Chloroquine Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum Isolates from Tertiary Care Hospital.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Malaria Research and Treatment Volume 2012, Article ID 538481, 4 pages doi:10.1155/2012/538481 Research Article In Vitro Chloroquine Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum Isolates from Tertiary Care Hospital Fatima Shujatullah, Haris M. Khan, Abida Khatoon, Parvez A. Khan, and Mohammad Ashfaq Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202001, India Correspondence should be addressed to Fatima Shujatullah, sfatima777@ Received 27 May 2012; Revised 3 August 2012; Accepted 29 August 2012 Academic Editor: Neena Valecha Copyright © 2012 Fatima Shujatullah et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Chloroquine (CQ) has been the mainstay of treatment of malaria for decades. This cost-effective and safe drug has become ineffective for treatment of falciparum malaria in many parts of the world due to development of resistance by the parasite. In addition CQ is not gametocytocidal for P. falciparum and thus cannot block transmission. The extent of problem of chloroquine resistance in P. falciparum is increasing every year. The study was done in period of 2 years. A total of 5653 specimens were examined for malarial infection by employing different diagnostic modalities. Four hundred and thirty-five were found to be positive for P. falciparum by using different diagnostic techniques. All positive specimens were cultured on RPMI 1640 medium; only 108 were found to be culture positive. Sensitivity of isolates to chloroquine was done using Mark III WHO sensitivity plates. The prevalence of mala