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Source: https://www.newdelhitimes.com/lates...a-in-mekong-region-may-skirt-superbug-status/
Latest Drug-resistant Malaria in Mekong Region May Skirt ?Superbug? Status
By New Delhi Times Bureau on October 13, 2017
Som Aun contracted malaria after moving to the Thma Baing district of Cambodia?s Koh Kong province in 2002. Four years later, two of his children contracted the disease.
For five years, his son, An, now 19, and daughter, Sreyna, now 12, remained infected because no effective treatment was available, he told VOA Khmer.
?Sometimes the disease is healed for one month, but it would come back in the next two months,? he said, adding they both exhibited high fevers and chills.
His children, who work in banana plantations, were in and out of clinics, and ?after they took medicines, they would be fine for a period of time, then they would have to go to the hospital if they were in serious condition,? Aun said. The family resorted to hospitals infrequently, because transportation cost 200,000 riel to 300,000 riel (or about $50 to $75).
Researchers are increasingly alarmed by the emergence of a strain of drug-resistant malaria in Cambodia, a so-called ?superbug? that stares down the most commonly used anti-malaria drugs.
The superbug, first identified in 2008 in Cambodia, has spread into parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. Last month, scientists from the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) published a letter in The Lancet saying the superbug?s spread throughout the Mekong area was a serious threat to malaria control and eradication.
?A single mutant strain of very drug resistant malaria has now spread from western Cambodia to north-eastern Thailand, southern Laos and into southern Vietnam and caused a large increase in treatment failure of patients with malaria,? says letter co-author Arjen Dondorp, and Oxford professor, in a MORU release. MORU is a collaborative effort involving Thailand?s Mahidol University, Oxford University and the U.K.-based Wellcome Trust.
?We are losing a dangerous race,? Nicholas White, one of the letter?s co-authors, said in the release. ?The spread of this malaria ?superbug? has caused an alarming rise in treatment failures forcing changes in drug policy and leaving few options for the future.?
Local officials not concerned...
Latest Drug-resistant Malaria in Mekong Region May Skirt ?Superbug? Status
By New Delhi Times Bureau on October 13, 2017
Som Aun contracted malaria after moving to the Thma Baing district of Cambodia?s Koh Kong province in 2002. Four years later, two of his children contracted the disease.
For five years, his son, An, now 19, and daughter, Sreyna, now 12, remained infected because no effective treatment was available, he told VOA Khmer.
?Sometimes the disease is healed for one month, but it would come back in the next two months,? he said, adding they both exhibited high fevers and chills.
His children, who work in banana plantations, were in and out of clinics, and ?after they took medicines, they would be fine for a period of time, then they would have to go to the hospital if they were in serious condition,? Aun said. The family resorted to hospitals infrequently, because transportation cost 200,000 riel to 300,000 riel (or about $50 to $75).
Researchers are increasingly alarmed by the emergence of a strain of drug-resistant malaria in Cambodia, a so-called ?superbug? that stares down the most commonly used anti-malaria drugs.
The superbug, first identified in 2008 in Cambodia, has spread into parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. Last month, scientists from the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) published a letter in The Lancet saying the superbug?s spread throughout the Mekong area was a serious threat to malaria control and eradication.
?A single mutant strain of very drug resistant malaria has now spread from western Cambodia to north-eastern Thailand, southern Laos and into southern Vietnam and caused a large increase in treatment failure of patients with malaria,? says letter co-author Arjen Dondorp, and Oxford professor, in a MORU release. MORU is a collaborative effort involving Thailand?s Mahidol University, Oxford University and the U.K.-based Wellcome Trust.
?We are losing a dangerous race,? Nicholas White, one of the letter?s co-authors, said in the release. ?The spread of this malaria ?superbug? has caused an alarming rise in treatment failures forcing changes in drug policy and leaving few options for the future.?
Local officials not concerned...