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Penyakit Malaria

Dimulai oleh raisuien, September 10, 2009, 10:26:55 PM

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Astrawinata G

Best Regards,


Astrawinata G

riandono

yg falciparum ada di post diatasnya  :)

syx

Drug-Resistant Malaria Could Spread Fast, Expert Warns

GENEVA (Reuters) Jan 12 - Drug-resistant malaria could spread from southeast Asia to Africa within months, putting millions of children's lives at risk, a leading expert warned on Wednesday.

Nicholas White, professor of tropical medicine at Mahidol University in Bangkok, called for a war before it is too late on the artemisinin-resistant malaria strain that first emerged along the Thai-Cambodian border in 2007.

This form of malaria is suspected of breaking out along the Thai-Myanmar frontier and in a province of Vietnam, where tests are under way to confirm it, but the great fear is of it reaching Africa.

"It is a time bomb, it is ticking. It has the potential of killing millions of African children," White told Reuters.

A migrant worker who doesn't even show symptoms could spread the resistant parasite beyond Asia, he said. "It could be a Chinese worker acting as an adviser in Cambodian forests who then hops on a plane to Africa. It could go off at any minute."

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a $175 million annual plan to contain and prevent the global spread of the artemisinin-resistant parasite beyond the Mekong region.

The WHO, which said last month the world could stop malaria deaths by 2015 with massive investment, called for faster research and development of new anti-malarial drugs.

But White, widely credited with helping to first identify the resistant form, called the WHO plan "somewhat anodyne."

"I think we should fight this as a war. We are too fractured as a community," he told an experts meeting at WHO headquarters.

"What seems to be lacking is a sense of urgency. People talk in terms of years. I think we should be thinking in terms of months. Time is crucial," he said.

Artemisinin, derived from sweet wormwood, or the Artemisia annua plant, is the most potent drug available against malaria, especially when used in artemisinin combination therapy (ACT).

"ACTs are the gold standard. They are the most effective treatment for falciparum malaria, the most deadly form of malaria," WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in a speech. "The consequences of widespread resistance to artemisinins would be catastrophic."

Resistance to previous generations of anti-malarial drugs such as chloroquine spread from the same Mekong region to India and then Africa, killing millions, experts say.

"This part of the world is the historical epicenter for the emergence of drug-resistant malaria parasites. History tells us what to expect," Chan said.

White agreed, telling Reuters: "There is a horrible, chilling parallel. It is not as if we haven't been warned."

Malaria infects about 243 million people worldwide a year, causing an estimated 863,000 deaths, making it a major killer especially among African children.

Yet few promising alternatives are available in the immediate research and development pipeline, a WHO report said.

Some 5 million compounds are being screened as potential anti-malarials, 20,000 of which show promise, according to Dr. David Reddy, the new CEO of the Medicines for Malaria Venture, a public-private drugs partnership.

"That is how wide we have to cast the net in order to get a handful of drugs that will be tomorrow's medicines," he said.

syx

Fungus prevents malaria in mosquitoes
Greg Town

Engineered or transgenic fungi that can inhibit the development of malaria parasites inside mosquitoes could be a powerful weapon, and an alternative to insecticides, for combating this deadly disease, according to researchers.

"We've used genetic engineering to produce a pathogen – a fungus – that will infect mosquitoes, bore its way through the cuticle, and inject into the mosquito a chemical which will kill malaria, basically curing the mosquito of malaria," said study co-author Dr. Raymond J. St. Leger from the department of entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, US.

The researchers' study describes how various strains or combinations of strains of the mosquito-infecting fungus Metarhizium anisopliae blocked the development of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum in mosquitoes. [Science 2011;331:1074-1077]

One particular combination of M. anisopliae strains, expressing the toxin scorpine plus a salivary gland and mid-gut peptide, reduced counts of sporozoites – cells inside mosquitoes produced by malaria parasites to infect new hosts – by up to 98 percent.

Based on the results of their experiments, the study authors suggested that such a fungus, which infects mosquitoes upon contact, could be applied to indoor or outdoor surfaces in a similar manner to that with which insecticides or chemicals are used. Importantly, they added, it could help to attenuate the development of resistance against insecticides or be used effectively on mosquitoes already resistant to insecticides.

"The point about mosquitoes is, they're incredibly adaptable," said St. Leger. "They evolve really fast to outflank everything we put up against them. Insecticide after insecticide has been used to treat mosquitoes and, one by one, the mosquitoes have become resistant.

"You could actually use this fungus to help control the evolution of resistance," he added. "You might use the fungus and the insecticide alternatively, so the mosquito wouldn't be exposed to this insecticide year after year to get resistance... You could use the fungus to manage resistance against an insecticide; as well as, perhaps, replace the insecticide.

"We can use this fungus just like we would a chemical insecticide – as a spray, in a baited trap, in cloth sheets – in sheets hanging from the ceilings where the mosquitoes could land."

More than 1 million people die each year from malaria. While insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets are used to protect millions of people around the world, scientists believe it is only a matter of time before mosquitoes develop resistance to even the most advanced generation of insecticides.  (MIMS Online)