Table 3.

Therapeutic responses to intramuscular and rectal administration of quinine in children with malaria. Values are means (95% confidence intervals) unless stated otherwise

Variable	Rectal group (n=450)	Intramuscular group (n=448)
Quinine doses (mg/kg)	20.0 (18.1 to 22.0)	12.8 (11.2 to 14.3)
No of quinine administrations before switching to oral route	3.4 (2.1 to 4.8)	3.6 (2.3 to 5.0)
No (%) with early treatment failure on day 3*	26/417 (6)	13/413 (3)
Late clinical failure	1	0
Late parasitological failure	0	0
Fever clearance time (days)	1.8 (0.5 to 3.1)	1.7 (0.3 to 3.1)
Time to oral intake (days)	1.3 (0.2 to 2.3)	1.3 (0.5 to 2.0)
No (%) with fever recurrence on day 7†	18/395 (5)	37/375 (10)

^*Absolute difference 3.0% (95% confidence interval 0.2% to 5.9%), P=0.05.

^†Intramuscular v rectal: absolute difference 5.3% (1.6% to 8.9%), P<0.005.