NEW DELHI: Chloroquine has made a comeback to combat malaria. Studies have found that 70% of the malaria parasites in Senegal are reacting once again to chloroquine. A similar trend is being seen in Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi as well. Scientists say choice
of drugs against malaria is limited and related, so when the malaria parasite once again reacts to a substance, its welcome news. Interestingly, chloroquine was highly efficacious for over 50 years before the vector started becoming resistant to it. The latest finding can greatly help malaria treatment.
Chloroquine costs only 25 cents for a four-day cure, while the current and corresponding artemisinin combination therapy cost $ 2. Antimalarial drug resistance is a major public health problem which hinders the control of malaria. In India, resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to chloroquine the cheapest and the most used drug was first reported in 1973 from Diphu in Assam’s Karbi-Anglong district. Scientists say, “If healthcare personnel in developing countries can begin using chloroquine again, it will be possible to protect the currently used medicine and delay the reappearance of resistance, and it will also give a large group of patients access to cheaper treatment”. Every year, 250 million cases of malaria infections are reported around the world, causing nearly one million deaths. According to the recent World Malaria report, 2011, over 70% of India's population, or 100.41 crore face the risk of malaria infection. Around 31 crore, however, face the “highest risk” of getting infected by the vector-borne disease.
WHO said India has over 10 crore suspected malaria cases, but only 15.9 lakh could be confirmed last year. Scientists and healthcare personnel across the world fear that the malaria parasite will develop resistance to the current frontline treatment against malaria, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs). The resistance monitoring at the University of Copenhagen shows that in several African countries, malaria parasites are succumbing to chloroquine. The results have recently been published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The first case of chloroquine resistance was found along the Thai-Combodian border in the late 1950s.
By 1973, chloroquine had to be replaced by the combination of sulphadoxine and pyrimethamine (SP) as first line drug for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria in Thailand, and in more than 10 African countries. Chloroquine-resistant falciparum strains had spread in all endemic areas of South America by 1970 and almost all in Asia and Oceania by 1989. In India, chloroquine resistance was first detected in 1973 in Assam, which gradually spread towards the west and south, covering almost the entire country.
Source: The Times of India, October 4, 2012.
