Efficacy Study of a Single Dose Antimalarial Injection of Artemether and Lumefantrine

The WHO recommends artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for uncomplicated and severe malaria. In our earlier study Arteether-Lumefantrine (ART-LUM) SMEDDS administered as a single shot, showed high efficacy at a low dose. Since Artemether-Lumefantrine (ARM-LUM) is the widely used ACT, we developed ARM-LUM SMEDDS by replacing ART with ARM and evaluated efficacy in the Plasmodium berghei infected mice model. ARM-LUM SMEDDS with and without PLGA were administered as a single shot subcutaneous injection (3.1 mg kg-1 ARM and 18.6 mg kg-1 LUM). Both showed rapid and sustained parasite clearance within 72h, comparable to the marketed E-MAL (31mg kg-1), despite being 1/10th the dose, and significantly superior to ARM-LUM solution (p<0.05). No significant difference was observed between the two SMEDDS(p>0.05), indicating no role of the polymer. Further, ARM-LUM SMEDDS without polymer achieved a 3-log parasite reduction in 3 days compared to E-MAL (6 days) and P-SMEDDS (12 days) with 100% survival, highlighting its potential for single-dose malaria therapy.