Shots - Health Blog Fri June 15, 2012 Know The Enemy: Scientists
Use Genetics To Get Ahead Of Malaria Originally published on Fri
June 15, 2012 2:20 pm Like the proverbial mosquito that buzzes
in your ear but won't die, a lasting solution to malaria has
been maddeningly elusive to health experts. While effective
treatments to the disease – which kills more than 600,000 people
per year – have become more widely available, the parasite in
some places remains one step ahead, rapidly evolving to elude
the drugs. In the latest case of resistance, researchers
announced in April they'd found a new form of malaria resistant
to the most reliable and effective treatment currently available
– artemisinin combination therapy, or ACT. The discovery, on the
Thai-Burmese border, stoked fears that these drug may also soon
become useless. But even as a global scramble for a new
treatment accelerates, an international team of researchers
based in the U.K. say they've taken a big step forward in
tracking the parasite's evolutio