ASIA: Fighting the spread of Artemisinin-resistant malaria
BANGKOK, 26 March 2009 (IRIN) – Scientists and health workers are racing to contain a malaria strain along the Thai-Cambodia border that is becoming increasingly resistant to Artemisinin, the best drug available to fight it, experts say.
[See also: CAMBODIA: Malaria gaining tolerance to some treatments]
Artemisinin, normally used in a combination therapy (ACT), has given hope in recent years that malaria can be eradicated worldwide.
But a key trial in western Cambodia in 2007 and other evidence has shown a tolerance to Artemisinin in the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which causes the most deadly form of malaria.
“To prevent the spread of this [parasite], we need to be fast,” said Eva-Maria Christophel, a medical officer specialising in malaria and other vector-borne diseases with the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) regional office for the Western Pacific. continue http://www.IRINnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83648
