Tulane University researchers have developed a new drug that is effective against non-severe cases of malaria, according to results from an FDA-supervised clinical trial.

The drug, called AQ-13, was able to clear the parasite responsible for the disease within a week, matching the effectiveness of the most widely used treatment regimen.

Mosquitoes infected by a parasite spread malaria, causing more than 200 million illnesses across the globe and more than 400,000 deaths annually. For decades, chloroquine was used to treat malaria until Plasmodium falciparum developed resistance.

A drug combination- artemether and lumefantrine- is the primary treatment for malaria although resistance is also developing to the drug combination in some countries.

Researchers hope to expand testing of the drug to more participants, including women and children, before it can be widely recommended as a new treatment. The same biotechnology that helped the team develop the new drug has also identified similar drugs that also hold promise against drug-resistant parasites.