Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/07/200973043555272234.html
Thursday, July 30, 2009
News Asia-Pacific
Drug-resistant malaria sparks alert
An outbreak of drug-resistant malaria in western Cambodia poses a major threat to global efforts to eradicate the mosquito-born disease, the World Health Organisation has warned.
The alert follows a study which found that treatments derived from artemisinin, the basis of the most effective anti-malaria drugs, took twice as long to clear malaria parasites from Cambodian patients as it did in neighbouring Thailand.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, are expected to add urgency to efforts to halt the spread of the new strain which experts say could lead to millions more deaths from the disease.
The report comes on the same day researchers in Europe claimed a significant breakthrough, using mosquitoes themselves as a way to a potential malaria vaccine.
In the study conducted at Radboud University in the Netherlands volunteers using the drug chloroquine were given gradual exposure to malaria-infected mosquitoes.
The experiment produced dramatic results, with all 10 subjects in the vaccine group all acquiring immunity to malaria, while five others in a non-vaccinated comparison group did not.
Scientists warned, however, that the trial, while significant, was not practical on a large scale, although it did show that the principles involved offered one of the best hopes yet of developing an effective malaria vaccine.
Hotspot
The Cambodian study focused on malaria cases around the town of Pailin, a former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, close to the border with Thailand.
The region has long been known as a hotspot for drug-resistant malaria, with the drugs chloroquine and fansidar losing effectiveness there in the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming ineffective elsewhere.
News that the same region is now developing a resistance to artemisinin, has raised fears that one of the world's frontline drugs used in combating the disease could soon become ineffective.
The drug, commonly given as artesunate, only became widespread in the treatment of malaria about a decade ago.
Among the biggest worries, scientists say, is that artemisinin resistance could spread to Africa, where 90 per cent of the world's malaria deaths occur.
"Artemisinins are essential weapons in our war against malaria," said Nick White, one of the scientists involved in the study.
"If they become ineffective, we have no immediate replacement. The consequences could be devastating. Elimination of malaria will not be possible and millions of lives could be lost."
Wonder cure
Derived from an ancient Chinese herbal remedy, artemisinin had been considered a wonder cure for malaria because it was fast-acting, had few side effects and was almost 100 per cent effective.
The drug, produced from the sweet wormwood tree, had been used in Chinese traditional medicine for centuries and was reportedly given by China to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, when its use as a malaria treatment was rediscovered.
According to scientists involved in the Pailin study, this, and the fact that it is possible to buy artemisinin unregulated from street vendors in the area, has probably fuelled the emergence of drug resistant malaria in the region.
Arjen Dondorp, the leader of a WHO-backed study, said that while 100 per cent resistance had not yet emerged in Pailin, it was taking significantly longer for the drug to clear the parasite from a patient's bloodstream than elsewhere.
"It is a very worrying trend because instead of being able to kill the parasite in 48 hours it now takes about 84 hours," he said.
"This longer time means that in some patients the parasite is not completely eradicated from the body, allowing the few parasites that are left to grow and reappear weeks later."
Thursday, July 30, 2009
News Asia-Pacific
Drug-resistant malaria sparks alert
An outbreak of drug-resistant malaria in western Cambodia poses a major threat to global efforts to eradicate the mosquito-born disease, the World Health Organisation has warned.
The alert follows a study which found that treatments derived from artemisinin, the basis of the most effective anti-malaria drugs, took twice as long to clear malaria parasites from Cambodian patients as it did in neighbouring Thailand.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, are expected to add urgency to efforts to halt the spread of the new strain which experts say could lead to millions more deaths from the disease.
The report comes on the same day researchers in Europe claimed a significant breakthrough, using mosquitoes themselves as a way to a potential malaria vaccine.
In the study conducted at Radboud University in the Netherlands volunteers using the drug chloroquine were given gradual exposure to malaria-infected mosquitoes.
The experiment produced dramatic results, with all 10 subjects in the vaccine group all acquiring immunity to malaria, while five others in a non-vaccinated comparison group did not.
Scientists warned, however, that the trial, while significant, was not practical on a large scale, although it did show that the principles involved offered one of the best hopes yet of developing an effective malaria vaccine.
Hotspot
The Cambodian study focused on malaria cases around the town of Pailin, a former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, close to the border with Thailand.
The region has long been known as a hotspot for drug-resistant malaria, with the drugs chloroquine and fansidar losing effectiveness there in the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming ineffective elsewhere.
News that the same region is now developing a resistance to artemisinin, has raised fears that one of the world's frontline drugs used in combating the disease could soon become ineffective.
The drug, commonly given as artesunate, only became widespread in the treatment of malaria about a decade ago.
Among the biggest worries, scientists say, is that artemisinin resistance could spread to Africa, where 90 per cent of the world's malaria deaths occur.
"Artemisinins are essential weapons in our war against malaria," said Nick White, one of the scientists involved in the study.
"If they become ineffective, we have no immediate replacement. The consequences could be devastating. Elimination of malaria will not be possible and millions of lives could be lost."
Wonder cure
Derived from an ancient Chinese herbal remedy, artemisinin had been considered a wonder cure for malaria because it was fast-acting, had few side effects and was almost 100 per cent effective.
The drug, produced from the sweet wormwood tree, had been used in Chinese traditional medicine for centuries and was reportedly given by China to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, when its use as a malaria treatment was rediscovered.
According to scientists involved in the Pailin study, this, and the fact that it is possible to buy artemisinin unregulated from street vendors in the area, has probably fuelled the emergence of drug resistant malaria in the region.
Arjen Dondorp, the leader of a WHO-backed study, said that while 100 per cent resistance had not yet emerged in Pailin, it was taking significantly longer for the drug to clear the parasite from a patient's bloodstream than elsewhere.
"It is a very worrying trend because instead of being able to kill the parasite in 48 hours it now takes about 84 hours," he said.
"This longer time means that in some patients the parasite is not completely eradicated from the body, allowing the few parasites that are left to grow and reappear weeks later."