Parasites carrying drug-resistant malaria have been found in Southeast Asia and now threaten the populations of five countries where deaths from the disease have tumbled since 2000.
The drug-resistant malaria has been detected in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma), according to test that has been published in the latest edition of
Lancet Infectious Diseases, reported the
BBC News. Some experts fear that parasites carrying the strain of malaria could be on the verge of entering India.
"Particularly toward the north, resistance is certainly present as we highlight and now lies quite close to the northwest border with India," Dr. Charles Woodrow at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, told
National Public Radio.
"In parts of Cambodia we are really down to the last possibilities in terms of how we treat malaria. We are considering combining three drugs, extending courses from three days up to five days. So I think midterm, this is a major problem," said Woodrow.
Artemisinin-based drugs made in China became the standard for treating malaria in the 1990, according to NPR. Deaths from malaria have been cut in half since 2000, according to BBC News, killing about 584,000 people each year.
Researchers told the BBC News that they fear that the malaria strain could undo much of the advances science has made against the disease.
"This study highlights that the pace at which artemisinin resistance is spreading or emerging is alarming," Philippe Guerin, the director of the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network, told BBC News. "We need a more vigorous international effort to address this issue in border regions."
The study's researchers suggested if more work was not done to control the spread of the new malaria, it could reach well beyond Southeast Asia.
"Our study shows that artemisinin resistance extends over more of Southeast Asia than had previously been known, and is now present close to the border with India," wrote the researchers in the study. "This finding expands the area in which containment and elimination are needed to prevent the possibility of global spread of artemisinin resistance."
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