TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2003
Thai efforts raise hopes in battle against malaria
AFP
MAE SOT, Thailand: Hopes are rising on the global frontline battle against malaria, with a recent experiment in western Thailand halving the disease's mortality rate, and a major breakthrough by British researchers announced last week.
The disease, which is both preventable and curable, kills more than one million people a year.
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> From July 2001 to September 2002, the provincial health office in Thailand's
western Tak province, which borders Myanmar, ran an experimental initiative
aimed at controlling the malaria endemic to the area.
It resulted in a 30 percent drop in the number of cases caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is the most dangerous of the four forms of malaria and is frequently highly resistant to drugs. The number of cases in the area fell to 43,000 over the period, compared to 62,000 from the same period a year earlier, while the number of deaths dropped by 42 percent, with 36 fatalities compared to 62 previously.
"This initiative to control malaria is a world first under these study conditions," said Francois Nosten, director of the Thai research centre Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU) and overseer of the experiment's results. The experiment was based on the use of a cocktail of drugs to which the falciparum parasite is not resistant. Patients were given a cocktail of two drugs in a formula which reduces the resistance of the parasite to the drugs.
Meanwhile, a team of British researchers announced last week that they had identified the element in the make-up of the malaria parasite which enables it to become quickly resistant to new treatments.
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