Drug-free holidays: Compliance, tolerability, and acceptability of a 3-day atovaquone/proguanil schedule for pretravel malaria chemoprophylaxis in australian travelers

Abstract

Background Poor compliance with chemoprophylaxis is a major contributing factor to the risk of malaria in travelers. Pre-travel chemoprophylaxis may improve compliance by enabling “drug-free holidays.” The standard treatment dose of atovaquone/proguanil (250 mg/100 mg, 4 tablets/day for 3 days) provides protection against malaria for at least 4 weeks, and could therefore potentially be used for pre-travel chemoprophylaxis. In this study, we assessed the compliance, tolerability, and acceptability of the 3-day atovaquone/proguanil schedule for malarial chemoprophylaxis.

Methods Two hundred thirty-three participants were recruited from 4 specialized travel medicine clinics in Australia. Adults traveling to malaria-endemic areas with low/medium risk for ≤4 weeks were enrolled and prescribed the 3-day schedule of atovaquone/proguanil, completed at least 1 day before departure. Questionnaires were used to collect data on demographics, travel destination, medication compliance, side effects, and reasons for choosing the 3-day schedule.

Results Overall, 97.7% of participants complied with the 3-day schedule. Although side effects were reported in 43.3% of the participants, these were well tolerated, and mainly occurred during the first and second days. None of the participants developed malaria. The main reasons for choosing the 3-day schedule over standard chemoprophylaxis options were that it was easier to remember (72.1%), required taking fewer tablets (54.0%), and to help scientific research (54.0%).

Conclusions The 3-day atovaquone/proguanil schedule had an impressively high compliance rate, and was well tolerated and accepted by travelers. Further studies are required to assess the effectiveness of this schedule for chemoprophylaxis in travelers.