Hawking F, Marques R J
Bull World Health Organ. 1967;37(3):405-14.
In small-scale pilot trials, filarial infection can usually be reduced to low levels by oral administration of diethylcarbamazine to all the persons concerned; but in mass campaigns it is often difficult to persuade large numbers of people to swallow the tablets. In order to overcome this difficulty the authors propose that the compound be incorporated into cooking salt, as has been done with chloroquine to control malaria. There are many reasons why this method of medication should be more effective against filariasis than it has often been against malaria.Laboratory trials showed that cooking the compound in food did not make it toxic for rats or diminish its antifilarial activity. A pilot trial was carried out at Recife, Brazil, in which 1000 adults received salt containing 0.4% diethylcarbamazine (corresponding to a daily intake of 100 mg/day) for 40 days, and then salt containing 0.1% compound for a year. This medication was simple to administer; it was quite acceptable to the subjects; it caused no untoward effects; and it removed almost all the microfilariae from the blood. Administration of medicated salt (0.3%) for 18 days to another group of 1300 adults was well tolerated and produced a considerable reduction of the microfilarial load; but this short period was insufficient to remove all the microfilariae.The authors recommend that this method of administering diethylcarbamazine to large numbers of people should be investigated further to see if it could be used for mass campaigns to control filariasis.
在小规模试点试验中，通过对所有相关人员口服乙胺嗪，通常可将丝虫感染降低至低水平；但在大规模防治运动中，往往很难说服大量人群吞服片剂。为克服这一困难，作者建议将该化合物掺入食用盐中，就像用氯喹控制疟疾那样。这种给药方法防治丝虫病比防治疟疾往往更有效的原因有很多。实验室试验表明，在食物中烹饪该化合物不会使其对大鼠产生毒性，也不会降低其抗丝虫活性。在巴西累西腓进行了一项试点试验，1000名成年人食用含0.4%乙胺嗪的盐（相当于每日摄入量100毫克/天），持续40天，然后食用含0.1%该化合物的盐，持续一年。这种给药方式简单易行；受试者完全可以接受；未产生不良影响；并且几乎清除了血液中的所有微丝蚴。给另一组1300名成年人服用含药盐（0.3%）18天，耐受性良好，微丝蚴负荷显著降低；但这一短时间不足以清除所有微丝蚴。作者建议应进一步研究这种给大量人群服用乙胺嗪的方法，看其是否可用于大规模防治运动以控制丝虫病。
