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Today, 09 February 2010

› Strike three, Mr President

› Cooked head discovered

› Zuma apology 'unwelcome'

› 'Illegal' traps blasted

› Madiba to grace Parliament

Yesterday, 08 February 2010

› No credit to FW - Zuma

› Zapiro revives showerhead

› 'Our president has failed'

› Praise for Amla

› 'Zuma should be forgiven'

Question

Is it safe to take anti-malarial tablets if you suffer from epilepsy? If no, why is this? Is malaria more dangerous for an epileptic?

Answer

If you have epilepsy it is not safe to take mefloquine (Larium®), chloroquine (Nivaquine®), or pyrimethamine/sulfadoxine combination (Fansidar®). I must admit that I am not sure exactly why these drugs are unsafe in epilepsy. It probably has to do with their metabolism in the body. It is also significant that Fansidar is only one of a number of anti-malarials which can interfere with anti-epileptic drugs.

Epileptics can take proguanil (Paludrin®) alone, but this is not generally considered very effective. An epileptic who is only going to be in a malarial area for a short time can also use tetracycline antibiotics as anti-malarial prophylaxis. Both of these drugs, as with all the anti-malarials, must be used in combination with barriers to prevent being bitten at all.

Malaria may be more of a problem for an epileptic for a number of reasons. As you can see the number of drugs which can be used to treat the illness is limited, particularly if it is caused by a drug resistant form. Any disease which causes a high fever will be more dangerous in an epileptic due to the effect of high temperatures on electrical potentials in the brain. Fever is likely to reduce the seizure threshold, even with anti-epileptic medicication.

MORE MALARIA Q&A'S
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