Researchers are warning of a ‘terrifying prospect’ of drug resistant malaria parasites arriving in Africa. They fear the possibility that the genetic makeup of the mosquitoes-born parasites that induce the ailment, are changing and could resist available medicinal combinations like the resistance developed to chloroquine in the eighties.
“This highly successful resistant parasite strain is capable of invading new territories and acquiring new genetic properties, raising the terrifying prospect that it could spread to Africa, where most malaria cases occur, as resistance to chloroquine did in the 1980s, contributing to millions of deaths,” Professor Olivo Miotto, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Oxford, told the BBC. The study which was published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, was conducted in south-east Asia, where malaria rates are just now coming down. The scholars who conducted the study, are however weary of the rapid mutating parasites finding their way into Africa.
The researchers who are from institutes in the United Kingdom and Thailand, undertook a study of the malaria parasite and discovered that 80 per cent of the malaria parasites encountered were resistant to the drug combination of artemisinin and piperaquine which is globally used to treat the ailment. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, were places where mutating parasites had so far entered. Another observation made by the researchers is that malaria patients were using the wrong combination to tackle the disease. This they say could be behind the resistance of the parasitic family that causes the sickness.
Between 2008 when the drug combo was released, and 2018, the prevalence of malaria in Cambodia for example, dropped from 262,000 to 36,900. Professor Colin Sutherland, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, believes the declining population of patients could be boosting the fitness of the parasites.
“These parasites are scary beasts, there’s no doubt.”
However, I wonder if these parasites are not very fit because the population as a whole is crashing.” According to the United States of America embassy Fact sheet, there are 100 million cases of malaria reported in Nigeria every year, with 300,000 deaths. The BBC reports that there are 219 million cases of malaria worldwide with 435,000 people dying, within the same period. If the observations made by the researchers that administering substandard drugs on malaria patients leads to stronger parasites, the National Food drugs and Administrative Control (NAFDAC), will need to be more vigilant. The researchers also advised constant genetic analysis of malaria parasites to keep pharmacists a step ahead of the parasites.
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