It is more difficult to treat malaria. Resistance to the drug is more complex than thought

Almost 600,000 deaths in a year. If nothing is done, piperocine can no longer be effective as a preventive medicine.

There is another April 25, especially for health -linked researchers: it is World Day to fight malaria.

A malaria It is transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes Anopheles, contaminated by the parasite Plasmodium. And continues to kill a lot: 597 thousand deathsspread across 83 countries (the vast majority in Africa), throughout 2023; a year that had 263 million cases.

The numbers do not slow down because It is more difficult to fight This disease.

A new one demonstrated that the malaria parasite is resist treatment due to its multiple genetic changes – and not a single mutationas it was judged so far.

The international scientific team involved researchers from the University of Minho, who participated in the new work and advocated the hypothesis of changes in genes Plasmepsin and MDR1.

This analysis shows that resistance to pipelo (An essential drug in the treatment of malaria) It is due to multiple genetic changes in the malaria parasite.

In particular, variations in the Plasmepsin 3 gene are associated with reduced efficacy of treatment with dihydroartemisinin-pope in and a higher risk of malaria recurrence-especially among children in African countries, where the disease is more prevalent.

It is a discovery with “Important implications In the way we control and treat malaria, ”says Pedro Ferreira, one of the participants in the study.

Therefore, it is urgent to use advanced methods to follow and monitor antimallard resistance. Current surveillance strategies centered on individual genetic mutations may not be sufficient.

Danger of repetition

Pipequina remains in the human body for several weeks and protects against new infections. Already dihydroartemisinin only lasts a few hours, leaving the piperic then isolated.

That is, future combinations of antimallard drugs must have a similar pharmacokinetics to slow the parasite resistance.

In addition, the semi-long life of pipelo It can no longer be an advantage if its use is repeated on a scaleespecially in regions with many cases of malaria or when applied usually by prevention in children and pregnant women.

That is, the parasite tends to faster And the risk of having again infected after treatment.

If nothing is done, pipelo can cease to be effective as a preventive medicine in many countries.