"These are very critically ill children," she says, explaining that children are at greater risk of severe malaria than adults because they have not yet gained immunity. Severe malaria in a child can involve a high fever, convulsions, anemia, kidney damage and respiratory distress, among other issues. "A child can become extremely weak. They can't stand or feed on their own."
"It works like magic," says Namazzi. "Parasite clearance was very fast [compared to other malaria medications]. It had less complications. The mortality was lower."
But lately, that magic hasn't been working so well. After an infected mosquito bites you and deposits the malaria parasite into your body, the parasite starts to replicate. That's where artemisinin comes in. Given intravenously at regular intervals, it can kill most of the parasites in a patient's blood within hours. But now, Namazzi has been seeing patients where the drug takes several days to work.
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