WHO Prequalifies First Diagnostic Test for G6PD Deficiency

The WHO has “prequalified the first diagnostic test for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency which can help to safely deliver WHO-recommended treatments to prevent relapse of Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax) infection.” WHO's website has the news.

This prequalification marks a “significant milestone in facilitating safe and effective P. vivax malaria treatment.” It also “immediately followed the prequalification, in early December, of two new tafenoquine products for anti-relapse treatment of P. vivax malaria, and these therapeutics were recommended in updated WHO malaria guidelines released a few days earlier, in late November.”

P. vivax malaria is “endemic in all WHO Regions except the European Region, with an estimated 9.2 million clinical cases occurring in 2023. P. vivax is the dominant malaria parasite in most countries outside of sub-Saharan Africa.”

G6PD deficiency “affects more than 500 million people. While most people are unaware of their G6PD deficiency and go through life without suffering ill effects, certain drugs administered to prevent malaria relapse caused by P. vivax can result in acute haemolysis (destruction of red blood cells).” Testing devices that can “accurately distinguish patients with G6PD activity levels above and below the normal levels provide critical information to clinicians to decide which of P. vivax anti-relapse treatment regimens is most appropriate, including low- and high-dose primaquine and single-dose tafenoquine.”