Combination Therapy for African Sleeping Sickness

Eflornithine plus nifurtimox was as efficacious against second-stage Trypanosoma brucei gambiense infection as eflornithine monotherapy and was better tolerated.

African sleeping sickness, always fatal without appropriate treatment, persists in sub-Saharan Africa. Available therapies are toxic and often ineffective. In a multicenter, randomized, open-label, phase III trial conducted in the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, researchers compared the efficacy and tolerability of monotherapy (intravenous eflornithine every 6 hours for 14 days at 400 mg/kg/day) with those of combination therapy (oral nifurtimox every 8 hours for 10 days at 15 mg/kg/day, plus intravenous eflornithine every 12 hours for 7 days at 400 mg/kg/day [NECT]) in patients aged ≥15 years with second-stage (meningoencephalitic) Trypanosoma brucei gambiense infection. The primary endpoint was cure at 18 m…

Reviewing Author

Mary E. Wilson, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardOneHealthTrust (formerly Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy); Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin

RoyaltiesUpToDate

Editorial BoardsJournal of Travel Medicine

Mary E. Wilson, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardOneHealthTrust (formerly Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy); Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin

RoyaltiesUpToDate

Editorial BoardsJournal of Travel Medicine