Resistance to antimalarial drugs rings alarm bells

Washington: The antimalarial drug artemisinin resistance in western Thailand, and send alarm signals between experts in the world involved in the fight against the scourge of the judiciary in all parts of the world, according to a new study. Another study, also by the Institute of Biomedical Research of the State of Texas, and colleagues in Thailand have identified one of the major regions of the genome of the malaria parasite associated with resistance to artemisinin, raising hopes in the near future it may be molecular markers effectively control the spread of resistance.

Malaria killed 655,000 people, or more than one per minute in 2010. The decreased mortality due to malaria by 30 percent in the past decade because of effective control by the treatment with combination therapies containing artemisinin, and plant-derived anti-malaria drug developed in China, according to the journal The Lancet.

Patients with malaria parasites does not respond well to treatment, in Cambodia, so the World Health Organization coordinated effort to eradicate this disease in this region, according to a university.

From 2001 to 2010, the team studied the state of Texas and his colleagues in 3202 patients BioMed clinics in northwestern Thailand, 500 miles to the attention of Cambodia, according to The Lancet.

The researchers noted a significant decrease in the strength of the drug in that period. Moreover, by measuring the efficacy of the drug in patients with malaria parasites genetically identical, and were able to show that the decline in disseminating the results of genetic resistance to authority.

"Call of malaria parasites resistant to drugs in Southeast Asia and more than sub-Saharan Africa, where most malaria deaths occur, would be a disaster for public health and cause millions of deaths," said Texas Standwell BioMed Nkhoma, who led the study