An outbreak of drug-resistant malaria in western Cambodia poses a major threat to global efforts to eradicate the mosquito-born disease, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, reports Al-Jazeera online Thursday
The alert follows a study which found that treatments derived from artemisinin, the basis of the most effective anti-malaria drugs, took twice as long to clear malaria parasites from Cambodian patients as it did in neighbouring Thailand.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, are expected to add urgency to efforts to halt the spread of the new strain which experts say could lead to millions more deaths from the disease.
Malaria strikes hundreds of millions of people each year and kills more than 880.000, mostly children under five. It is the worlds third-deadliest infectious disease, behind Aids and tuberculosis.
The Cambodian study focused on malaria cases around the town of Pailin, a former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, close to the border with Thailand.
The region has long been known as a hotspot for drug-resistant malaria, with the drugs chloroquine and fansidar losing effectiveness there in the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming ineffective elsewhere.
News that the same region is now developing a resistance to artemisinin, has raised fears that one of the worlds frontline drugs used in combating the disease could soon become ineffective. The drug, commonly given as artesunate, only became widespread in the treatment of malaria about a decade ago.
Among the biggest worries, scientists say, is that artemisinin resistance could spread to Africa, where 90 per cent of the worlds malaria deaths occur.
– If Artemisinin become ineffective, we have no immediate replacement. The consequences could be devastating. Elimination of malaria will not be possible and millions of lives could be lost, said Nick White, one of the scientists involved in the study.
Wonder cure
Derived from an ancient Chinese herbal remedy, artemisinin had been considered a wonder cure for malaria because it was fast-acting, had few side effects and was almost 100 per cent effective.
The drug, produced from the sweet wormwood tree, had been used in Chinese traditional medicine for centuries and was reportedly given by China to Cambodias Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, when its use as a malaria treatment was rediscovered.
According to scientists involved in the Pailin study, this, and the fact that it is possible to buy artemisinin unregulated from street vendors in the area, has probably fuelled the emergence of drug resistant malaria in the region.
