There is a drug called the’magic’ drug for malaria

Namazzi’s frustrations with malaria in Southeast Asia: Why a third dose is more necessary for the fight against disease’s progression?

The scientists in Africa and Southeast Asia are trying to figure out if using an additional third dose of medication will help combat the partial resistance. In addition to the medication options that already exist, Haldar says the study shows “a greater need for new treatment.” A new drug is taking a long time to develop and no new drug is ready to take the place of artemisinin.

After an infected mosquito bites you and deposits the malaria parasite into your body, the parasite starts to replicate. That’s where artemisinin comes in. Given intravenously at regular intervals, it can kill most of the parasites in a patient’s blood within hours. But now, Namazzi has been seeing patients where the drug takes several days to work.

She says the situation is different in Southeast Asia because the parasites there are probably more resistant to drugs than those in Africa.

Children are often sent home with an oral antimalarial drug if there is signs of resistance. The drug is supposed to help make sure there are no remaining parasites in the body. But about 10% of the patients that doctors thought were better showed up sick again, within a month.

The altered gene they found in the malaria parasite is associated with resistance to drugs that fight the disease.

“These are very critically ill children,” she says, explaining that children are at greater risk of severe malaria than adults because they have not yet gained immunity. A child can experience a range of problems, from a high feverishly to convulsions and even respiratory distress. “A child can become extremely weak. They can’t be fed on their own.

The study authors were concerned about the fact that 11 of 100 children had to take artemisinin more than 5 hours to kill half the parasites in their bloodstream. These kids are considered to have partial drug resistance, under the World Health Organization’s definition. (It’s not complete resistance because the kids did eventually get better.) “Think about it, for any infection, more than 10 out of 100 people you treat don’t get better [quickly]. That’s really pretty bad,” says Haldar.

Between treating patients, she says, they voice their concerns: “‘Malaria’s very stubborn,'” she says they tell her. “‘It’s not responding to treatment.'”

For years, Namazzi — who is also a lecturer at Makerere University College of Health Sciences — has turned to a medication called artemisinin. The drug is derived from an ancient Chinese malaria treatment that was rediscovered several decades ago and has saved millions of lives. It made such a profound difference that one of the people who helped revive the medical recipe received a Nobel prize for her work.

“It works like magic,” says Namazzi. “Parasite clearance was much quicker than other drugs.” It had less complications. The mortality was not as high.

She wanted to understand what was happening. She collaborated with other people to figure it out. They had several hypotheses: Maybe the dose is too small or perhaps the patients aren’t completing the full medication course.

Detection of Malaria Resistance in African Children: A Study by John G. A. Bohma and Henrietta Sobolev

Malaria kills more than half a million people each year, most of them are young children in Africa. This study is the first time researchers have documented signs of resistance in African children with severe malaria. John says that it’s estimated that between one and five million children in Africa get severe malaria each year. Children with uncomplicated Malaria have few options for other drugs.