South East Asia is desperately trying to contain a drug resistant strain of malaria, trying to keep it from becoming a worldwide epidemic. Africa already accounts for 90% of deaths from malaria, so they are particularly vulnerable to outbreaks. Asia is working to keep the outbreak under control by closely monitoring patients for progress with treatments, and aggressively re-treating them until they are cured. They are using financial incentives to get people to return for follow-up visits (many don't because of the distance to the clinics) and treating those who show signs of resistance with quinine IVs. Africa depends primarily on artemisinin-based drugs to treat malaria, which are the very drugs that this strain of malaria is showing resistance to. Without access to better alternatives, Africa hopes to avoid this strain at all costs, because there won't be any new drugs released to combat malaria until 2015. Fortunately, there may be a malaria vaccine out around the same time.
I chose this article to feature on my blog because we've learned about the devastating presence of malaria in class, and how this disease has been present in Africa since the precolonial period, when it served as a barrier against Europeans that were not immune to the disease. It's interesting to see that quinine is still in use today. A medicine that was once used to allow Europeans to penetrate Africa's core is now being used for Africa's benefit, by battling the resistant strain of the disease in Asia that is a serious threat to the African people.
You can read the article about South East Asia's battle against drug resistant malaria
here.
Mosquito nets play a crucial part in protection against malaria. Photo courtesy of blogs.state.gov
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