Resistance to key malaria drug spreads
Parasites less susceptible to artemisinin now affect several Asian countries
By Nathan Seppa
Resistance to the top malaria drug has fanned out from its origins in Cambodia to other parts of Southeast Asia. A report in the July 31 New England Journal of Medicine establishes that the scourge has found a way to skirt the effects of artemisinin and its chemical derivatives, the best available antimalarial drugs. Scientists suspect that a genetic mutation in the parasite in these harder-to-treat cases underpins the resistance.
“I’m concerned,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, in Bethesda, Md. “Artemisinin derivatives used in combination with other drugs have been game changers.”