Drug-resistant malaria

"In a dusty village near the Thai-Cambodia border, 24-year-old Oeur Samoeun sits on a dark green hammock recovering from a strain of malaria that has resisted the most powerful drugs available. . . Ravaged by days of fever and chills, he is considered lucky: the parasite has left his body. But for many others, the potentially deadly disease never quite disappears."

Pailin province, where Samoeun lives, is the unwitting nursery of drug-resistant malaria. It "is the epicenter of strains of malaria that have baffled healthcare experts worldwide, raising fears a dangerous new form of malaria could already be spreading across the globe."

Last year, a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine "showed that conventional malaria-fighting treatments derived from artemisinin took almost twice as long to clear the parasites that cause the disease in patients in Pailin and others in northwestern Thailand, suggesting the drugs were losing potency in the area." USAID, a U.S. development agency, agrees that traditional arteminsinin-based therapies are "now taking two to three times longer to kill malaria parasites along the Thai-Cambodian border than elsewhere."

Three drug-resistant malaria parasites have emerged from this province over the past five decades. "Thanks to prolonged civil conflict, dense jungles and movement of mass migrants in the gem mines in the 1980s and 90s, the strains multiplied and dispersed through Myanmar, India and two eventually reached Africa."

"Few can say why it is a hotbed for drug-resistant malaria", but experts point to "a combination of sociological factors and a complicated history spanning the Khmer Rouge era when 1.7 million people, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population, perished from execution, overwork or torture during their 1975-79 rule."

Insurgents clung to Pailin, and it was "one of their last holdouts" before their defeat in the late 1990s. During the era of the Khmer Rouge, people resided in Pailin illegally. When they contracted malaria, they bought medication through black markets and self-medicated.

Self-medication was the only way to curb the rising number of malaria cases, so Cambodia made the decision to make anti-malarial drugs available over the counter. "The strategy carried risks. Easy access reduced the number of cases but also led to incorrect dosages and substandard or counterfeit medicine". Instead of eradicating the malaria parasites, over-the-counter treatments made the parasitic population stronger against widely used medications.

Without adequate drugs to combat the disease, drug-resistant malaria parasites threaten the world. Preventative measures, such as the use of bed-nets to avoid mosquito bites, may be our best defense against malaria. Donate a bed net through Nothing But Nets.

Source:
Win, Thin Lei. Reuters. "Cambodia drug-resistant malaria stirs health fears." 6 March 2010.