Experts warn of new killer malaria strain

A strain of malaria which is difficult to treat with widely used medicines could be spreading in Kenya, new research warns.

For almost eight years, malaria resistance to these medicines that are derived from a compound called artemisinin, was thought to have been contained in a small area on Thailand’s border with Cambodia and Myanmar.

But results released on Friday indicated that the difficult to treat strain has either spread to Kenya and other countries in Africa or the local parasite has developed resistance. Read (Kenya set to get cheap anti-malaria medicine)

Blood samples collected from foreigners who had visited Kenya and other countries in Africa between 2008 and last year have shown the parasite is building resistance to a key ingredient in malaria medicines called artemether.

According to the study by researchers at St George’s University in London published in the Malaria Journal, of the 28 samples tested 11 were resistant to artemether, some as high as 50 per cent.

This comes barely a fortnight after the head of Diseases Control and Prevention in the Ministry of Health, Dr Wills Akwale, warned Kenyans against self-medication as this could make malaria drugs less effective.

“It has become commonplace that when some people develop fever they rush straight to their local pharmacy and demand malaria drugs. In some of these cases, the underlying disease is rarely malaria,” said Dr Akwale.

The government in 2010 changed treatment policies requiring that any patient suspected of malaria be tested before any medicines are prescribed.

But a report by the Global Fund found that although patients with fever were being sent for testing at public hospitals, doctors or clinical officers prescribe artemether medicines before the results are out.

Talking to the Nation on Monday Dr Akwale said Kenyan researchers have also been conducting studies to monitor whether malaria is building resistance to the new drugs but so far they have no evidence this is happening.

“We will want to evaluate the new information and if necessary engage in patient studies to see whether these drugs are losing their efficacy,” he said.

He said if the report is true, and he had no basis for doubting the London study, then this could be a big blow to the fight against malaria which.

Deaths from malaria have declined dramatically over the last few years. According to recent statistics from the ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, malaria prevalence rate has dropped to less than one per cent in most parts of the country.

Both the coastal and the northern Kenya region have a prevalence rate of less than five per cent according to the statistics contained in a 2010-2014 malaria communication strategy.

In the endemic Lake Victoria basin region, however, the rate is still high with 38 per cent.

Even so, the ministry says this is cause for celebration as it is a big drop from the high of 70 per cent witnessed in the past decade.