They looked at treatments like mefloquine [Larium], tafenoquine [Arakoda}, primaquine, methylene blue, and lumefantrine [Coartem], alone or in combination with artesunate. [Babesia killing]…. was verified by microscopy and PCR.
Results:
- All drugs, except lumefantrine [in Coartem], showed in vitro [lab] activity against B. bovis,
- with methylene blue showing the most potent activity….
- Combination with artesunate led to improved activity [which matches our 2003-2008 research published in two books],
- with mefloquine [Larium] showing a striking 20-fold increase in activity.
- Tafenoquine …. combined or not with artesunate, but not mefloquine, induced rapid clearance of B. microti in [mice] by microscopy, but mice remained PCR-positive.
- Blood from mice treated with tafenoquine alone, but not with tafenoquine-artesunate, was infective for naive mice upon sub-inoculation. [Meaning they took things like blood from the tafenoquine-treated mice and put it into mice with no Babesia.]
- Note the use of tafenoquine and artesunate had a much greater effect together.
We have used more than one treatment since about 25 years ago.
We have published that the hardy semisynthetic herb, artesunate, is vastly more powerful than mere Artemisia annua and Artemisinin against Babesia as part of our 4 million in self-funded research over 30 years.
The notion that tafenoquine is promising for Babesia I published 20 years ago.
Carvalho LJM, Tuvshintulga B, Nugraha AB, Sivakumar T, Yokoyama N. Activities of artesunate-based combinations and tafenoquine against Babesia bovis in vitro and Babesia microti in vivo. Parasit Vectors. 2020 Jul 20;13(1):362. doi: 10.1186/s13071-020-04235-7. PMID: 32690081; PMCID: PMC7372749.