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Professor Arjen Dondorp

Professor Arjen Dondorp

Podcast interview

The treatment of severe malaria

Successful malaria control has meant a drop in mortality rates worldwide but it is still an important disease. Therapies using artesunate, a derivative of artemisinin drugs, aim to kill malaria parasites before they mature. These therapies have high success rates and need to be developed. General care of malaria patients also needs to be improved.

View podcast transcript

Arjen Dondorp

Professor of Tropical Medicine

  • Deputy Director of the Mahidol Oxford Clinical Research Unit, Thailand

MORU

I am an intensive care and infectious diseases physician and trained in the Netherlands. Since 2001 I work at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand where I am currently the Deputy Director and Head of the Malaria and Critical Illness Department. I am a Professor of Tropical Diseases at Oxford University, and a visiting Professor at the Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand.

My main research interests include the pathophysiology and treatment of severe malaria, antimalarial drug resistance, new treatments for drug resistant falciparum malaria and the improvement of intensive care practice in developing countries. In addition to my work at MORU, I currently chair the Regional Steering Committee for the Regional Artemisinin-resistance Initiative from the Global Fund. This is a large regional grant supporting the malaria elimination efforts in the Greater Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia.

Difference in parasite clearance rates after oral artesunate in patients with uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Northwestern Thailand compared to Western Cambodia (N Engl J Med. 2009)
Survival curves of (mainly adult) patients with severe malaria treated with intravenous quinine versus artesunate (Lancet 2005)
Relation between the calculated total body Plasmodium falciparum biomass and severity of disease. (PLoS Med 2005)