New Delhi: As per a recent study, the lineage of malaria superbug is has spread widely across Asia.
Noting that the further spread of these multidrug resistant parasites through India to sub-Saharan Africa would be a global public health disaster, the authors of the study called for accelerated efforts in the Greater Mekong Sub-region and closer collaboration to monitor any further spread in neighbouring regions.
The malaria superbug lineage is causing high treatment failure rates for the main falciparum malaria medicines, artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs), according to the study published today in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The emergence and spread of artemisinin drug resistant P falciparum lineage represents a serious threat to global malaria control and eradication efforts.
"We now see this very successful resistant parasite lineage emerging, outcompeting its peers, and spreading over a wide area," said study lead author Arjen Dondorp from Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) in Bangkok, Thailand.
The authors warned that malaria parasites resistant to both artemisinin and its widely used partner drug piperaquine are now spreading quickly throughout Cambodia, with fitter multidrug resistant parasites spreading throughout western Cambodia, southern Laos and northeastern Thailand.
"It has also picked up resistance to the partner drug piperaquine, causing high failure rates of the widely used artemisinin combination therapy DHA-piperaquine" Dondorp noted.
"We hope this evidence will be used to reemphasize the urgency of malaria elimination in the Asia-region before falciparum malaria becomes close to untreatable," Dondorp added.
(With IANS inputs)
