"At the turn of the millennium, a new class of drugs derived from ancient Chinese herbal medicine revolutionized malaria care. Artemisinin's, as they're called, are based on extracts from the sweet wormwood plant. They arrived just as the drugs used since the 1970s were becoming useless for many, as the parasite that causes malaria evolved resistance. "The deaths we saw in the late 1990s, the early 2000s like 2 million a year that was a direct result of drug failure," says George Jagoe, executive vice president of access and product management at Medicines for Malaria Venture, a non-profit. "No one ever wants to be behind the 8-ball again.""
"A new drug, called GanLum, was more than 97% effective at treating malaria in clinical trials carried out across 12 African countries, researchers reported Wednesday at the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Toronto. That's as good, if not better, than the current standard of treatment. If approved by regulators, it could be a powerful new tool against a disease that kills roughly half a million people each year."
""I would call it being ready, having a fire extinguisher in the back that you're ready to use, but maybe not necessarily deploying, versus the house catches on fire and you've got nothing," says Jagoe."
Artemisinins, derived from sweet wormwood, transformed malaria treatment after older drugs failed due to parasite resistance, saving millions and becoming the global treatment foundation. Emerging artemisinin resistance now threatens those gains and risks repeating past mortality increases. New drugs that target the malaria parasite differently are needed to avert large-scale treatment failure. GanLum achieved more than 97% effectiveness in clinical trials across 12 African countries and could become an important new treatment option if approved, offering potential to reduce the roughly half a million annual malaria deaths.
Read at www.npr.org
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