The safety of amodiaquine use in pregnant women

Abstract

Few antimalarial drugs have been evaluated extensively in pregnancy because of fears over toxicity. However, increasing Plasmodium falciparum resistance to chloroquine and sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine makes finding alternative antimalarials that are safe and effective in pregnancy a priority. There is a renewed interest in amodiaquine as a potential candidate, particularly as a partner drug in artemisinin-based combination therapy. The available data suggest that, at standard dosages, amodiaquine is not teratogenic and that the adverse events associated with taking amodiaquine in pregnancy are not greater than those associated with falciparum malaria in pregnancy. Thus, amodiaquine in combination with other antimalarial drugs may be useful for malaria treatment in pregnancy, but inadequate data on its safety and pharmacokinetics in pregnancy limits its deployment for intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy.