{"id":7473,"date":"2016-03-29T13:41:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T13:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psi2030.wpengine.com\/?p=7473"},"modified":"2018-05-22T22:22:35","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T22:22:35","slug":"the-unrelenting-specter-of-drug-resistant-malaria","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/news\/the-unrelenting-specter-of-drug-resistant-malaria\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unrelenting Specter of Drug-Resistant Malaria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"1266\" class=\"graf--p graf--hasDropCapModel graf--hasDropCap graf-after--figure\"><span class=\"graf-dropCap\">F<\/span><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">or the last seventy years<\/strong>, malaria could have starred in <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Groundhog Day<\/em>. Despite scientists\u2019 best efforts to fight the ancient disease\u200a\u2014\u200awhich today\u00a0<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/mediacentre\/factsheets\/fs094\/en\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/mediacentre\/factsheets\/fs094\/en\/\">kills<\/a> over 400,000 people a year\u200a\u2014\u200athe parasite has remained irritatingly defiant, acting in some places like a recurring villain.<\/p>\n<p id=\"af40\" class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">After World War 2 ended, malaria was prevalent throughout the world, its spread no doubt aided by the war. At the time, the recently developed medicine chloroquine was hailed as a key to getting rid of it for good. Together with DDT to kill parasite-carrying mosquitos, the World Health Organization was convinced they had the tools to see the end of the disease.<\/p>\n<p id=\"5883\" class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">In some places, the WHO\u2019s plan worked. The United States was <a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/malaria\/about\/history\/elimination_us.html\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/malaria\/about\/history\/elimination_us.html\">declared<\/a>\u00a0malaria-free in 1951, and much of Europe soon after that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p id=\"e281\" class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">For work, Taeam works at a logging company in Cambodia\u2019s Stung Treng province, which Bunkok said is known to be more malaria-endemic.<\/p>\n<p id=\"2081\" class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">As they chatted, Bunkok drew two drops of blood. He put one under his microscope, and the other on a \u201crapid diagnostic test\u201d for malaria. (Both instruments were given to him by <a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/\">Population Services International<\/a>, a nonprofit.) Within minutes, Bunkok confirmed that Taeam had falciparum malaria.<\/p>\n<p id=\"adf0\" class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">Since Taeam had stopped his previous drug regimen early, Bunkok wasn\u2019t sure if the parasites in his blood had evolved to be resistant\u200a\u2014\u200abut decided ultimately that an artemisinin-led combination of drugs was the right course for his patient.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\">\n<p class=\"graf--p graf-after--p\"><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/the-development-set\/the-unrelenting-specter-of-drug-resistant-malaria-da11f736c973#.a3a942pbw\" target=\"_blank\">Read the full article on Medium&#8217;s website.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"template":"","related_practice_areas":[],"related_countries":[],"related_projects":[],"news_category":[],"class_list":["post-7473","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/7473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"related_practice_areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_practice_areas?post=7473"},{"taxonomy":"related_countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_countries?post=7473"},{"taxonomy":"related_projects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/related_projects?post=7473"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=7473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}