Health experts are worried at the emergence of a drug-resistant mutation of the parasite that causes malaria, which could complicate efforts to combat the current Covid-19 pandemic.
EVEN as the Covid-19 pandemic is still wreaking havoc around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) says another health threat is looming.
Health experts on Thursday (April 15) have reported the first clinical evidence of a drug-resistant mutations of a parasite responsible for malaria that is now gaining ground in Africa.
Experts have long worried about the emergence of drug resistance across the African continent, which accounted for more than 90 percent of malaria deaths worldwide in 2019.
A new study published in the medical journal "The Lancet" appears to confirm those fears.
In clinical trials, the disease was found to linger longer in children receiving standard treatment for malaria if they were infected with mutant strains of the disease, the study found.
The efficacy of Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) remained high, but researchers said there was an "urgent need" for more monitoring in Rwanda, where the study was conducted, as well as in neighboring countries.
Introduced in the early 2000s, ACTs are the most effective and widely- used treatments for malaria.
"Our study shows that resistant isolates are starting to become more common," said lead author Aline Uwimana, a researcher at the Rwanda Biomedical Centre in Kigali.
The disease killed more than 400,000 people in 2019, more than two-thirds of them children.
Malaria is caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is carried by female mosquitos from any of several dozen species in the genus Anopheles.
Resistance to the artemisinin component is suspected if P. falciparum is still present after three days of treatment.
Currently, ten mutations in one of the parasite's genes, known as pfk13, have been confirmed as markers of partial resistance, and several others are tagged as potential markers.
Evidence from the Mekong region in Southeast Asia has shown that once artemisinin resistance becomes prevalent, resistance to the partner drug often follows, resulting in ACT treatment failure.
A study in 2013 and 2014 showed some mutations, but no evidence that the drug combo was less effective.
Follow-up research in 2018, however, showed for the first time, mutations in the pfk13 gene and so-called delayed parasite clearance in patients, though ACT effectiveness remained above the critical threshold of 90 percent.
"Recent data suggest that we are on the verge of clinically meaningful artemisinin resistance in Africa," Philip Rosenthal, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco, wrote in a comment,
Loss of efficacy of key ACTs "may have dire consequences, as occurred when chloroquine resistance led to enormous increases in malaria deaths in the late twentieth century," he said.
(RdlC)
Tags: #globalhealth, #malaria, drugresistance