Malaria is a disease spread by infected mosquitoes. Although the disease may be treated if found in the early stages, recently doctors have troubling reports in regard to the effectiveness of the standard medications used to combat malaria. Multiple cases of what appears to be a drug-resistant strain of malaria have been reported across South East Asia. Doctors have recently confirmed that 80 percent of the malarial parasites spreading from Cambodia across Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam are resistant to the two most common antimalarial drugs: dihydroartemisinin and piperaquine, also known as DHA-PPQ. Scientists have also discovered that the new strain, now known as KEL1/PLA1, corresponds to failure of treatment in half of cases which were testing one of the most “potent” combinations of antibiotics. Researchers have found that the recently discovered malarial parasites spread aggressively; they have become the dominant strain in Vietnam, Laos, and northeastern Thailand. The new invasive parasite has an astounding ability to invade new territories and acquire new genetic properties, raising extreme concern that they may have the ability to spread to Africa, where the most reported cases of malaria deaths occur. In 2017 alone, 403.000 of the 435,000 deaths caused by malaria were located in Africa. According to CDC (Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention) the reason there is such a high mortality rate in Africa due to malaria is a very efficient mosquito (Anopheles gambiae complex). The predominant parasite species in Africa is Plasmodium falciparum, which is the species that is most likely to cause severe malaria and death. If researchers in the affected parts of South East Asia do not soon come up with an effective drug that may at the very least subdue this new strains ability to spread at such an alarmingly fast rate, the consequences may be found in various regions across the world.
