The effect and control of malaria in pregnancy and lactating women in the Asia-Pacific region

Half of all pregnancies at risk of malaria worldwide occur in the Asia-Pacific region, where Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax co-exist. Despite substantial reductions in transmission, malaria remains an important cause of adverse health outcomes for mothers and offspring, including pre-eclampsia. Malaria transmission is heterogeneous, and infections are commonly subpatent and asymptomatic. High-grade antimalarial resistance poses a formidable challenge to malaria control in pregnancy in the region. Intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy reduces infection risk in meso-endemic New Guinea, whereas screen-and-treat strategies will require more sensitive point-of-care tests to control malaria in pregnancy. In the first trimester, artemether-lumefantrine is approved, and safety data are accumulating for other artemisinin-based combinations. Safety of novel antimalarials to treat artemisinin-resistant P falciparum during pregnancy, and of 8-aminoquinolines during lactation, needs to be established. A more systematic approach to the prevention of malaria in pregnancy in the Asia-Pacific is required

Salt effects on surfactant aggregation and dye-micelle complexation

137-143Physical parameters for characterizing the structure of micelles are necessary for their surface chemical understanding. The effects of salts on physical characteristics (viz. critical micelle concentration, aggregation behaviour, counter ion binding, dye binding, etc.) of micelles have been investigated. The critical micelle concentration of ionic surfactant (sodium dodecylsulphate) has been found to decrease with addition of salt while for nonionic surfactants (Tweens) the change is insignificant.The aggregation number as well as safranine T and phenosafranine micelle binding constants show increase for ionic micelles in salt environment. The effects of salt in the above regards on nonionic micelles are negligible