Malaria Claimed

Another Cure For Malaria Claimed

ANEW chemical that cures malaria instead of just suppressing it is an nounced in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The chemical, which was developed during the wartime search for drugs to protect Servicemen against malaria, has been named pentaquine.

Dr. R. F. Loeb, chairman of the Board for Co-ordination of Malarial Studies, re ports that the chemical achieved tflie “radical cure” of severe malaria when given with quinine every four hours, day and night, for 14 days. The drug com pletely eradicated the base in 16 out of 17 cases. Given without qunine, penta quine was only partially effiective in pre venting relapses.

Dr. Loeb states that although the drug is considered safe to give for treatment it should be used only under close med ical supervision and preferably in hospital.

Two well-known Territorians were patients in the Scottish Hospital, Sydney, at the end of 1946. One was Mr. George Aumuller, well-known manager of Burns Philp & Co. Ltd., Port Moresby, who had to come South for an operation in Octo ber. He has now recovered, however, and was discharged from the hospital before Christmas. The other is Mr. “Scotty”

McEwan, the well-known master baker, of Lae. He was injured at his bakery in September when an oven which he was erecting fell and crushed him. The hos pital reports that he is “improving—but will be in hospital for some time yet.”