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Momodou
Denmark
11787 Posts |
 Posted - 25 Oct 2007 : 00:55:48
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Malaria Drug Offers New Hope
Malaria Infects Half a Billion People Each Year
Scientists are reported to have developed a cure for malaria that has been successfully tested on monkeys.
A team of researchers discovered a drug which stops the disease from spreading by preventing malaria parasites from reproducing.
The disease is one of the most prevalent and deadly in the world, affecting about half a billion people each year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The new drug could be available for testing on human beings within about two years, reports the American journal Science.
Until now, most anti-malaria drugs have only had limited effectiveness and new strains of the disease have developed which are resistant to treatment.
The team of European and South African scientists said the new drug, called G25, completely cured monkeys infected with the disease in laboratory experiments.
Parasites
Malaria is transmitted to victims by blood-sucking mosquitoes.
Microscopic parasites enter the victim’s blood stream and liver, where they multiply, before entering red blood cells.
There they continue to reproduce, burst the blood cells and infect more red blood cells in an ongoing process.
The parasites can eventually kill 70% of blood cells, causing anaemia, coma and death.
G25 blocks the parasites’ ability to multiply in the blood cells by preventing it from making protective membrane, crucial to the parasites’ life cycle.
Team leader Dr Henri Vial, from the French National Centre of Scientific Research, said the new drug killed all the parasites within two days.
Other studies suggest that the parasite failed to develop resistance to the new drug, even though researchers encouraged it to do so. Malaria kills almost 3m people, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia, each year, according to WHO figures.
One of the main drawbacks to G25 is that it has to be injected, although tablet form should be available within two years.
“For people from Africa or from Asia it is more safe to take the drug orally,” said Mr Vial.
Mr Vial said that while it worked well, G25 was not the definitive cure and work was already under way to develop an improved version.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 125/2007, 24 – 25 October, 2007
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