Scientist Discover Why Malaria Resists Chloroquine
For many decades the most effective treatment for those infected with Malaria was chloroquine. But recently in many parts of the world a strain of malaria parasite that is resistant to chloroquine emerged. Some countries were forced to simply abandon chloroquine treatment.
Now researchers at the US Institute of Allegy and Infectious Diseases announced they found that the mutation of a single gene in the parasite is responsible for the emergence of chloroquine resistance. Formerly it was believed that a number of mutations spread over a number of genes was likely responsible.
If this result holds up, it should make it easier to potentially alter chloroquine in such a way as to evade the parasite’s new-found resistance and make chloroquine an effective treatment for malaria once again.
Source:
Malaria parasite gene breakthrough. The BBC, October 20, 2000.
The Scientist Discover Why Malaria Resists Chloroquine by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Tags: Malaria