The most effective cure for malaria could be lost unless new prescribing guidelines are followed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, BBC Online reports Thursday.
Drug firms are being urged to stop selling artemisinin on its own to prevent the parasite building up resistance to the drug.
Artemisinin has a 95 per cent malaria cure rate, but only if used in combination with certain other drugs, the WHO says. If the drug became ineffective, another cure could be 10 years away, it added.
There are at least 300 million cases of the disease each year, resulting in about a million deaths annually. Although there are several treatments for malaria, widespread resistance to conventional antimalarial drugs has contributed to higher death rates.
Dr Arata Kochi, director of the WHOs malaria department, said there had so far been no treatment failures due to resistance from the parasite which causes the disease.
But his team is watching the situation carefully, and concerns have been raised about decreased sensitivity to the artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) in South-East Asia.
This is the region that has traditionally been the birthplace of anti-malarial drug resistance. Dr Kochi said: – Our biggest concern right now is to treat patients with safe and effective medication, and to avoid the emergence of drug resistance.
– If we lose ACTs, we will no longer have a cure for malaria, and it will be at least 10 years before a new one can be discovered, he noted.
In Thailand, a drug called sulfadoxine-pyrimethanime (SP) was initially nearly 100 per cent effective in curing malaria when introduced in 1977. But within five years it was curing only 10 per cent of cases, because of drug resistance.
The once-popular chloroquine (klorokin) has lost its effectiveness in almost every part of the world, BBC adds.
