Malaria Resistance Increasing on Thai-Burma Border

(PHOTO: Microscopic magnification shows Plasmodium falciparum-the most virulent of the 4 malaria parasites that infect humans, destroying red blood cells in the liver. It digests a cell's hemoglobin, multiplies inside to the point of rupturing the cell, & rapidly spreads a new generation of infection/NatGeo)Malaria parasites resistant to the last, best drug treatment, called artemisinin combination therapy, or ACT, are infecting people along the border of Thai-Burmese reports the latest Lancet from physicians treating patients there. The proportion of patients with the slowest response to treatment in western Thailand has increased from less than 1% in 2001 to 20% in 2010. The focus on ACT-resistant strains has recently been in Cambodia - but this is a new resistance - meaning it arose independently from the Cambodian type rather than spreading from there. Malaria experts have been holding their breath, hoping it wouldn't happen. But it did.

(Video Al Jazeera)

If drug-resistant strains spread worldwide, public health officials will once again need to develop new drugs. The biggest fear is that resistant forms of malaria will emerge in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria afflicts & kills more people than anywhere else. Widespread resistance to chloroquine, the drug of choice for fighting malaria from the 1950s through 1980s, led to a major resistance development from the disease, especially among children.

(GRAPH: Malaria symptoms/Wikipedia) Additionally, researchers report in Science they've zeroed in on changes in the parasite's genes which drive the new strain of resistance.  Artemisinin-based therapies are a big reason why the hope of eliminating malaria has been rising; including wide distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets & last fall's announcement that the first large field trial of a malaria vaccine reduced infections by 55%. More than 600,000 people die of malaria each year around the world tho that number has been falling.