Malaria in New Guinea during the Second World War: the Land Headquarters Medical Research Unit

In June 1943 arrangements were made to carry out experiments on malaria suppressive drugs on human volunteers in Cairns, in north Queensland, under the direction of Brigadier Neil Hamilton Fairley; early in 1944 the Land Headquarters Medical Research Unit was established to continue this work. Using 868 healthy volunteers and 317 infected soldiers and A. punctulatus mosquitoes flow in from New Guinea or bred locally, several suppressive drugs were tested. Doses of 10 grains of quinine daily failed to suppress New Guinea strains of P. falciparum and were only partially effective against P. vivax infections, whereas 100 mg of atebrin daily controlled symptoms of P. vivax infection and cured infections with most New Guinea strains of P. falciparum, however some strains of P. falciparum from Wewak were resistant to this dose, but were cured with double the daily dose.