Years after a malaria strain increasingly resistant to the most-effective drugs was confirmed from Cambodia in 2006, the artemisinin-resistant malaria has now been found to have spread along the Thailand-Burma border.
According to 10-year-long study published in the Lancet medical journal, the containment strategy will have to be reconsidered if the resistant parasites have spread to other parts as well.
After the artemisinin-resistant malaria was confirmed in Cambodia, there has been a concerted international effort to contain P falciparum malaria so as to prevent the resistance from spreading.
However, its emergence along the Thailand-Burma border was novel.
In the recent the study experts analysed data from 3202 patients between 2001-2010. “The proportion of slow clearing infections increased from 0.6 per cent in 2001 to 20 per cent in 2010,” said the Lancet.
Experts observed that patients at malaria clinics took longer to get better when treated with combination therapies containing artemisinin.
Experts are yet to ascertain if it got spread or emerged newly in the area. “Genetically determined artemisinin resistance in P falciparum emerged along the Thailand-Burma border at least eight years ago and has since increased substantially. At this rate of increase, resistance will reach rates reported in western Cambodia in two-six years,” said the experts.
Experts are worried as resistance to previous mainstays of antimalarial treatment “also arose in western Cambodia and spread across the Southeast Asia into Africa resulting in the deaths of millions of children,” said the Lancet.
According to the experts, “If resistance to artemisinin is confined to the Cambodia-Thailand border, regional elimination of falciparum malaria will probably be necessary for containment. However, if resistant parasites have already spread or emerged elsewhere, then the containment zone will need to be extended and the strategy reconsidered.”
It was also found that on the north-western border of Thailand, 800 km from western Cambodia, treatment failure rates have increased.
The spread of drug-resistant malaria has been blamed on the incorrect use of artemisinin and fake and substandard versions of the drug.