Quinine Medication for Malaria Treatment

Running head: MALARIA
MALARIA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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MALARIA
Introduction
Malaria is a disease transmitted to humans commonly by Anopheles gambiae mosquito as
it is infected by the parasite, more specifically a protozoa namely Plasmodium vivax. Malaria is a
severe disease which could lead to death of the infected person and also spreads throughout the
surrounding people of the diseased person as it is a contagious disease (Lalloo et al. 2016). The
malaria infected person could experience high fever, flu-like condition, chill and other symptoms
as well (Fardet, Nazareth and Petersen 2017). In the following section the effects the medication
process and the effects of the medication along with the absorption and metabolism of the
medication would be discussed.
Common Drug for Malaria
Malaria is one of the severe diseases that can cause death also and there are five types of
malaria present that can be caused by different Plasmodium species and the medication also
differ by means of the type of the malaria the patient infected with. However, the most common
medication for the malaria treatment is Quinine which only used for malaria treatment and it
used in a combination with different drug resistant compounds as without those compounds
Quinine could affect the patient’s body in various ways. The drug resistant agents used with the
combination with Quinine sulfate are Doxycycline, Vybramycin, Monodox and others and these
combinations are the most common medication for the malaria treatment (World Health
Organization 2015). Other than this single type of combination three other common medications
could be used in the process of malaria treatment such as the combination of Atovaquone and
Proguanil, Mefloquine and Primaquine phosphate. However, the usage of anti-malaria medicines
by the patients without any doctor’s consent would be fatal as these kinds of medicines do not

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contain any active agent that can kill the parasite causing the disease. There are several side
effects which can be caused by the Quinine use in the treatment of malaria such as nose bleed,
blood in urine, higher rate of heart pounding, dizziness, chest pain and others. In order to prevent
all these side effects the drug resistant compounds are used in combination of Quinine. The
Quinine does not kill the parasite outside the red blood cell however, it prevents the fever and
other symptoms by effecting the infected red blood cells and in this process the drug takes at
least 4 weeks to cure the patient’s condition and if there is no effect then the medication must
stopped. Quinine is an old drug and it does not work against severe malaria and thus the modern
medication of Artemether-lumefantrine is more effective in the severe conditions (Phyo et al.
2018).
Quinine Medication
Quinine comes in a capsulated form and can be taken up by the oral process and the
medication needed to be up taken 3 times a day after eating. Quinine absorbed by the body fluid
and it has a high affinity towards the proteins and thus binds with the α-1 acid glycoprotein.
However, the binding in the plasma is highly concentration dependent and also depends on the
levels of the α-1 acid glycoprotein present in the body (Dziekan et al. 2019). After one to three
hours of absorption Quinine hits its peek and works most and the half life of the drug ranges
from 11 to 18 hours. The metabolism process of the drug comprised of the attachment to the α-1
acid glycoprotein and then the cytochrome P-450 enzyme which metabolises approximately 50%
of the drug in the clinical process glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase is also a enzyme that
helps in the metabolism process of this drug as the deficiency of this enzyme found to have
negative impacts on the Quinine metabolism process. The 80% of the taken drug eliminated from
the body by means of the hepatic biotransformation and the 20% of Quinine excreted by the