About 140,000 people in the Kintampo South and North districts are to take part in a research, which seeks to find out the number of people who are familiar with artesunate amodiaquine, a new malaria drug. The study also seeks to find out whether people would, out of their own volition choose the drug over other malaria medications available on the market within a rural setting. The research, which begins in January 2008, is to be undertaken by the Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) in the Brong Ahafo region and would inform policy makers on the usage of the drug. Artesunate-amodiaquine is now a first line drug for treating malaria in Ghana. The World Health Organisation has recommended to African countries experiencing resistance to mono-therapies such as chloroquine to go in for artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), such are artesunate-amodiaquine and coartem. There have been some complaints about adverse drug reaction among some users of artesunate-amodiaquine, and the study would help address some of these challenges. The study is a follow up to a project conducted in the area on compliance among the population in adhering to instructions on taking artesunate amodiaquine when administered to patients directly at the health facility level and when patients are asked to go home and administer the drugs themselves. Dr Kwaku Poku Asante, a Clinical Research Fellow at the KHRC, told Journalists from the African Media and Malaria Research Network on a visit to the centre, that about 90 per cent of people who took part in the earlier, project complied and took all the drugs. He said one significant finding of the project was that there was a complete parasite clearance from the blood streams of patients after 14 days of taking the drug. Source: GNA