West Australian company Eastland Medical Systems Ltd announced today the positive results of the clinical trial of its product ArTiMist™. The sublingual spray (applied under the tongue) is a revolutionary patented technology that will make a significant difference in reducing deaths in young children.
Whilst traditional treatments can be effective against malaria in adults, young children are particularly susceptible to severe or complicated malaria and speed of delivery is critical to saving lives. It is a sad fact that many children die because of delays in getting to a hospital or medical clinic where help can be given. This is a daunting prospect for families with children given that complicated malaria can kill a child within 24 hours.
Eastland’s recently completed clinical trials in Rwanda comparing ArTiMist™
Not only has the study achieved a similar success to intravenous infusion, which is expensive to administer, the spray application of ArTiMist™ under the tongue can be delivered by untrained personnel. As such, ArTiMist™ can provide a rapid and effective first line treatment against severe or complicated malaria in children where time is of the essence.
Further, ArTiMist™ is particularly valuable and effective in patients with advanced malaria where oral drugs are impractical due to vomiting and diarrhoea or where the patient has become comatosed.
• Positive results achieved from Phase 1 multi and single dose clinical studies for ArTiMistTM indicating the formulation was well tolerated and showed no adverse effects in any of the study subjects.
• ArTiMistTM Clinical Field Trial completed in February 2010 in Rwanda.
Scientist Calvin Ross, inventor of ArTiMist™ and director of Eastland Medical Systems stated “Accessibility to and early administration of this new treatment ArTiMist™ will be seen as a major advantage in reducing the majority of deaths from severe malaria in children,”
Mr Patterson, Eastland’s CEO, confirmed that as a consequence of the successful ArTiMist™ clinical trials UK consultants ProtoPharma Ltd will now be engaged to conduct an extended study to confirm the results in a larger group of patients. The extended clinical trials are expected to commence later this year.
Editor’s Notes
Malaria is a serious, infectious disease spread by female Anophele mosquitoes. According to the World Malaria Report 2008, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that about half of the global population (3.3bn) is at risk of getting malaria with 247 million malaria cases reported worldwide and almost 900,000 fatalities. Of the malaria cases reported approximately 91% of the people suffering from malaria live in Africa. 85% of all malaria deaths are of children.
