Malaria parasite's resistance to top drug grows: WHO
Wed Sep 23, 2009
The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that the parasite which causes malaria is increasingly resistant to artemisinin, the best drug around, and failure to contain this trend would bring serious consequences.
The Asia Pacific region has traditionally been the focus of resistance to antimalarial drugs and now we have artemisinin resistance primarily on the Thai-Cambodian border," said John Ehrenberg, WHO regional adviser on malaria and other vectorborne and parasitic diseases. "If it is not contained, it can have global implications and the most serious one would be in Africa which has a high disease burden and the highest mortality rates," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a regional meeting of the WHO in Hong Kong.
Although malaria is preventable and treatable, there were still between 189 million to 327 million cases in 2006, resulting in between 610,000 to 1.2 million deaths.Half the world's population is at risk, particularly the poor and those living in remote areas with limited healthcare access. A child dies from malaria every 30 seconds.
Artemisinin, derived from the sweet wormwood shrub, is the best drug available but misuse and over-prescription have led to the parasite becoming resistant to it.
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