Drug resistance to malaria increasing warn experts

Resistance to the world's most effective drug against malaria is increasing across Southeast Asia, a recurrent pattern that is threatening global efforts aimed at controlling the mosquito-borne infectious disease, according to a new study, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Resistance to the drug, artemisinin, in the most deadly form of malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, had been established in northern and western Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and eastern Myanmar, the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine showed.

In the research, coordinated by the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, blood samples from 1,241 malaria patients in 10 Asian and African countries between 2011 and 2013 were analysed.

Fear was increasing that resistance would spread from Asia to Africa where much progress had been achieved in cutting deaths from malaria. Three African sites included in the study in Kenya, Nigeria and Congo had shown no signs of resistance.

According to Nicholas White, senior author of the study who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, there was no evidence that it had spread to Africa but there was a need for vigilance. He added it might not have got to India yet, but if it did, stopping it might not be possible.

The study, however, did not find any signs yet of resistance in the three African sites it covered in Kenya, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of the Congo health24.com reported.

Over half the world's population is at risk of malaria infection, and while there had been significant reductions in the numbers falling ill and dying from the mosquito-borne disease, it still killed over 600,000 people each year.

Children under five are the most vulnerable to the disease and by far are the majority of the victims. They mostly come from the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The late 1950s to the 1970s, saw chloroquine-resistant malaria parasites spread across Asia to Africa, leading to a resurgence of malaria cases and millions of deaths.

Chloroquine had been replaced by sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP), however, resistance to SP was later seen to emerge in western Cambodia, which later spread to Africa.

SP, in turn was replaced by artemisinin combination treatment, or ACT, and according to experts indications were that history might replace itself for a third time.

Cautioning that conventional malaria control approaches would not be enough, White said in a statement that there was a need to take more radical action and make this a global public health priority, without delay.