Intermittent preventive therapy

Intermittent Preventive Therapy (IPT)

Intermittent Preventive Therapy (pronunciation: in-ter-mit-ent pre-ven-tive ther-a-py) is a public health intervention strategy aimed at treating and preventing certain diseases in high risk populations.

Etymology

The term is derived from the English words "intermittent", meaning occurring at irregular intervals; "preventive", meaning designed to keep something undesirable such as illness from occurring; and "therapy", meaning treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder.

Definition

Intermittent Preventive Therapy involves the intermittent administration of full therapeutic doses of an antimalarial drug during the pregnancy period at risk, regardless of whether the subject is known to be infected with malaria. The therapy is aimed at preventing malaria morbidity and mortality during pregnancy, which can lead to poor pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight and preterm birth.

Related Terms

• Malaria
• Antimalarial drug
• Pregnancy
• Pregnancy outcomes
• Low birth weight
• Preterm birth

See Also

• Malaria in pregnancy
• Malaria prevention
• Antimalarial medication

External links

• Medical encyclopedia article on Intermittent preventive therapy
• Wikipedia's article - Intermittent preventive therapy

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