Posted on 01/19/2006 11:33:13 PM PST by neverdem
Warning that misuse of the most promising new malaria drug could create an incurable strain of the disease, the new chief of the World Health Organization’s malaria program demanded yesterday that 18 pharmaceutical companies stop selling some forms of the drug.
After several of the companies refused the demand, the official, Dr. Arata Kochi, made an unusually strong threat for an official of the health organization, saying he would publicly name the companies still selling the drugs three months from now and, if they persisted, would try to disrupt sales of their other medicines.
The new drug, artemisinin, a derivative of sweet wormwood isolated by Chinese scientists, is the most powerful new weapon in the antimalaria arsenal. Health agencies consider it the best hope for controlling the disease, one of the world’s leading killers, which takes more than a million lives each year, mostly those of young children.
But these agencies say artemisinin should be used only in a cocktail with other malaria drugs, usually including a slower-acting one that lingers longer in the blood.
Combination therapy, which is routine with AIDS and tuberculosis drugs, not only attacks a disease more effectively, but slows the emergence of microbes resistant to drugs.
But at least 18 companies from Belgium, China, France, Ghana, India, Kenya, Switzerland and Vietnam make the drug as a pill that can be taken by itself, in what doctors call monotherapy, and sell it cheaply in Africa, Asia and Latin America. People with fevers often buy drugs at small shops without a prescription or a test to make sure that their fever is caused by malaria.
That is a recipe for disaster, Dr. Kochi said.
“We can’t afford to lose artemisinin,” he said. “If we do, it will be at least 10 years before a drug that good...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bring back D.D.T! Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. Of course the enviornmentalist had it banned.
Or they could just bring back DDT. That would help to control a host of insect carried diseases.
Beat me by 20 seconds.
"Testing" in the Topics? Got a little carried away there, didn't you?
"But these agencies say artemisinin should be used only in a cocktail . . . "
Gin and tonic.
Isn't it absinthe that is brewed from wormwood? Absinthe and tonic.
Also, I kind of expect if the WHO does try the "shame them" tactic the companies will simply end up with more orders because more people know who to order it from.
It killed the taste, and you didn't feel nearly so bad from the malaria.
L
I don't know --- sounds about right. The phrase about the "cocktail" just jumped out at me and I was reminded that "gin and tonic" was supposedly invented as a way to make taking quinine for malaria more palatable, so to speak.
That's exactly what made me think of it.
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.
L
How else is drug resistance determined?
I love this drug. I've begun treatment immediately after gettting a positive test for malaria and within two hours all symptoms are gone. The drug has no discernable side-effects, unlike vision, hearing and balance problems which I get with chloroquin and quinnine. Hubby doesn't get such wonderful results and so choses to stick with chloroquin.
There is nothing which makes quinine more palatable. It is the only drug for which I've had to take another drug prior in order to keep the quinine down. It is thoroughly nasty.
I've never had to take quinine. What little may be in tonic water is all that I've ever experienced.
I see from your posts that you and your husband both suffer from malaria. Just where in the world did you both catch it if I may ask? Not common for Americans to have experience with malaria.
We live on an island in the South Pacific just below the equator. Currently we're in the US but expect to return to the island this summer. It has been nice not to have malaria for a little while, but the trade-off is the common cold. I'd rather have malaria.
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