A Bayesian approach to compare the effect of three drugs used to treat children suffering from malaria

Abstract

The world today has evolved with many and new inventions in areas of medical research. Various drugs have been generated to cure various ailments like Malaria, HiV/Aids, TB, Cholera, Typhoid, Ebola, Hepatitis, Diabetes, Cancer, and Hypertension among others. The treatment for various ailments ranges from a single drug to even five drugs for a particular ailment. The acceptance of a particular drug depends on the efficacy of a particular drug as compared to others. This results to their recommendation by world bodies like World Health Organization for their use among the world population. The study therefore sought to find out among the three treatments administered to children suffering from malaria, which treatment had a longer delay period to the recurrence of Malaria namely; Artesunate (ART), Quinine (QN) and Coartem (AL). This was done by identifying three different groups who were administered the different treatments and applying the survival analysis models on the data. Data was analyzed using R Programming and Advanced Excel Simulation.The results on the efficacy of the three treatments showed Artesunate was more efficacious. The difference in Delay time between Artesunate and Quinine was 3.37 days and between Artesunate and Coartem was 6.59 days. The difference in delay time between Quinine and Coartem was 3.22 days. In all the cases, the difference in delay time for Artesunate was positive in comparison with Quinine and Coartem treatments.