This is promising. If it becomes possible to eliminate one hundred
percent of the parasitic load, then it may become possible to target
disease eradication itself through planned isolation that blocks any
chance of reinfection until a district is cleansed. It has been done
before, but this drug could make it quick enough to allow other fast
acting tools to be applied cheaply.
Cleansing Terra of malaria is a richly to be desired objective. We
have done it and can do it with the right tools.
Again this discovery promises to take time and it may turn out to
simply not work at all when we go to human trials, but we can hope
New opportunity for
rapid treatment of malaria
by Staff Writers
London, UK (SPX) Oct 31, 2012
Initial tests showed
the molecules were able to kill strains of Plasmodium that have
developed a resistance to current treatments, although the scientists
say more experiments are needed to confirm these results.
Malaria causes up to 3
million deaths each year, predominantly afflicting vulnerable people
such as children under five and pregnant women, in tropical regions
of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Treatments are available for this
disease, but the Plasmodium parasite is fast becoming resistant to
the most common drugs, and health authorities say they
desperately need new strategies to tackle the disease.
This new potential
treatment uses molecules that interfere with an important stage of
the parasite's growth cycle and harnesses this effect to kill them.
The impact is so acute it kills ninety per cent of the parasites
in just three hours and all those tested in laboratory samples of
infected human blood cells, within twelve hours.
The research was
carried out by chemists at Imperial College London and biological
scientists from the research institutions Institut Pasteur and CNRS
in France. Their work is published in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Lead
researcher Dr Matthew Fuchter, from Imperial College London, said:
"Plasmodium falciparum causes 90 per cent of malaria
deaths, and its ability to resist current therapies is spreading
dramatically. Whilst many new drugs are in development, a significant
proportion are minor alterations, working in the same way as current
ones and therefore may only be effective in the short term. We
believe we may have identified the parasite's 'Achilles' Heel', using
a molecule that disrupts many vital processes for its survival and
development."
The research has
identified two chemical compounds that affect Plasmodium falciparum's
ability to carry out transcription, the key process that translates
genetic code into proteins. These compounds are able to kill the
parasite during the long period of its complex life cycle while it
inhabits the blood-stream. This is in contrast to the majority of
antimalarial drugs, whose action is limited to shorter stages of
Plasmodium's life cycle.
"One particularly
exciting aspect of this discovery is this new molecule's ability to
rapidly kill off all traces of the parasite, acting at least as fast
as the best currently available antimalarial drug," said Dr
Fuchter.
Initial tests also
showed the molecules were able to kill strains of Plasmodium that
have developed a resistance to current treatments, although the
scientists say more experiments are needed to confirm these results.
The scientists hope to
refine these molecules, improving their effectiveness and proving
this to be a viable strategy for treating malaria in humans. They
hope it will lead to the development of an effective malaria cure
within the next ten years.
This research
was published in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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