Cool Greys Drug Resistance Threatens Anti-Malaria

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“If we do not put a stop
Since 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended artemisinin-based combination therapies as the frontline treatment for malaria. The drug cocktails combine fast-acting artemisinin with a longer-acting, older antimalarial,Jordan Spizike 2009 Stimulus Bill Tax Breaks Incom, delivering a one-two punch to the parasite.
That one drug is artemisinin, a derivative of Artemisia annua, the sweet wormwood plant. When taken in combination with another drug,Air Jordan 13 2010 California's Out Of The Box Tra, artemisinin can knock out a lethal malaria infection swiftly and completely.
Ineffective monotherapies still dominate the private market in large countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], which together account for 30 percent of malaria cases in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria kills nearly a million people each year, most of them young children in Africa. The vast majority of deaths are due to Plasmodium falciparum, a vicious malaria strain that has become resistant to all but one of the malaria drugs on the market.
One malaria drug after another has lost its effectiveness as the parasite has adapted. The prospect of losing artemisinin, the last effective weapon in the anti-malaria arsenal, has sent a chill through the global health community. There is no new anti-malaria drug in development that could readily take its place.
Now, as an indirect result of the drug’s high cost, malaria parasites resistant to artemisinin have emerged along the Thai-Cambodian border and are threatening to spread.
Worldwide, the area of malaria prevalence has shrunk over the past half-century as a result of effective control measures—drug therapy in combination with indoor mosquito spraying and use of bed nets. But the disease still threatens half the world’s population.
A key problem is the unaffordability of the artemisinin combination drugs. A full treatment costs up to 65 times the minimum daily wage in some countries, according to Dr. Desmond Chavasse of Population Services International (PSI).
In other cases, people unwittingly purchase counterfeit drugs that contain only a token amount of artemisinin. Like the monotherapies, these encourage the growth of artemisinin resistance. Fake drugs saturate the market in the area of Southeast Asia where the emergence of artemisinin-resistant P. falciparum has recently been documented.
Often, price forces people to buy older malaria drugs to which the parasites have become resistant. Medicines such as chloroquine can cost as little as 30 cents per treatment, compared to as much as $11 for the artemisinin combination therapies, according to a recent study by PSI and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
It is crucial that artemisinin not be administered alone, a method known as monotherapy. Without a companion drug, some parasites linger in the body and can become resistant to artemisinin.
Malaria Eradication Efforts Threatened
Treating Malaria with Artemisinin Combination Therapies
Even in countries that have officially adopted the combination therapies, the majority of public sector health facilities don’t offer them. As a result, people buy malaria remedies in the private sector, finding pills in open markets, at small shops, and in the informal “gray” market where there are few or no controls.
For this reason,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the WHO in 2006 called for artemisinin monotherapies to be pulled from the market, except in special cases. But many manufacturers and countries are failing to comply.
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