Poster Presenter

Genes Alleles Associated With Chloroquine Resistance In Plasmodium Falciparum From Iran
A R.E.Rastaghi , M.Nateghpour, M.Assmar, H.Kanbara, H.Uemura, S.R.Naddaf and A. Raeisi
Iran

In Iran, malaria was most important serious health problem in the past and according to the records of Ministry of Health during the last decade the annual malaria cases have decreased. Malaria transmission mostly occurs in the south-eastern parts of the country in Sistan & Baluchistan, Hormozgan and Kerman provinces. Resistance of Plasmodium. falciparum to chloroquine has increased since it was first reported in 1983 in Sistan &Baluchistan and later in Hormozgan province. In 2004 more treatment failures occurred in south-eastern provinces of Iran. In this study we assessed the efficacy of CQ in vivo, and the association between pfcrt mutations at codons 76 and 220 and pfmdr-1 mutations at codons 86 and 184 and treatment outcome in patients with uncomplicated malaria. The failure rate on 28 days was 77.5% and the K76T and A220S mutations were present in 100% and 77.8% respectively of chloroquine resistance isolates. In pfmdr-1 gene 38.7% of chlorquine resistance isolates were 86Y and 96.8% were 184F.This study confirms the high level of in vivo resistance to CQ and shows the high prevalence of pfcrt K76T and pfmdr-1 Y184F mutations in Iran. Moreover, the results support the hypothesis that molecular basis of chloroquine resistance involve mutation in genes and detection of mutated alleles could predict potential chloroquine treatment failures.