Malaria drug fails in some patients in United Kingdom
A village malaria worker carries out a blood test at his home in Pailin province in Western Cambodia on July 5, 2012. PHOTO | TANG CHHIN SOTHY | AFP
What you need to know:
- The drug combination known as Artemether-Lumefantrine was unable to treat four patients who had visited Africa. Doctors are now seeking an alternative.
- Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicates the treatment failure was due to strains of the disease showing a “potential first sign of drug resistance”.
- Scientists, however, say it is too early for full-blown panic but warned it could get worse.
- They called for an urgent appraisal of drug-resistance levels in Africa.
A drug commonly used to treat malaria has failed in some patients in the UK, causing panic among researchers.
The drug combination known as Artemether-Lumefantrine was unable to treat four patients who had visited Africa. Doctors are now seeking an alternative.
Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicated the treatment failure was due to strains of the disease showing a “potential first sign of drug resistance”.
The team of scientists, however, said it was too early for full-blown panic but warned it could get worse. They called for an urgent appraisal of drug-resistance levels in Africa.
The treatment failure comes at a time researchers are grappling with drug resistance in southeast Asia.
Dr Bernhards Ogutu, the chief research officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, blames drug resistance on patients who go for over-the-counter medicine without getting tested for malaria, thereby exposing themselves to different combinations of the drug.
“Resistance often arises due to drug pressure, caused by dispensing all the types of drug combination at the same time,” he said.
He also blames resistance on patients who fail to complete the drug dosage.
