Fact: Malaria is becoming more drug-resistant. That is scary..

Originally published at metafact.io.

Malaria kills 438,000 people each year, mostly in Africa and South-East Asia, according to the World Health Organisation. The good news is that deaths have nearly halved since the year 2000.

This success has been in part due to artemisinin, a group of drugs when combined with traditional therapies have been proven to be very effective against the main parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. Recent reports in The Guardian claim that artemisinin resistance has been detected.

FACT CHECK: Is Malaria becoming more drug resistant?

97% say ‘Yes’ based on 36 independent experts at Metafact.io

“The evidence is overwhelming that not only is resistance being seen to Artemisinin but also to partner drugs that are combined with it (Artemisinin Combination Therapies)” says Prof Jake Baum, Imperial College London

“Studies of patients with malaria in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand have shown increasing numbers of treatment failures in people treated with combination therapies.” says Dr Elizabeth Ashley from Oxford University. “The problem seems to be confined to Southeast Asia at present but it is proving difficult to contain. If resistance emerges in Africa..this could allow malaria to get out of control” she says.

There are 207 million cases of malaria caused by P.falciparum. So what can be done about the emerging resistance?

“First, discover new therapies.” says Prof Kevin Baird from the Eijkman Oxford Clinical Research Unit. “Second, use more complex combinations of the therapies we have. Third, become less reliant on treatment as the front line of malaria control by preventing more infections with vigorous and genuine vector control. [That means] attacking anopheline mosquitoes more aggressively than just residential insecticides.”

New compounds and therapies are critical.

“The urgency to develop and roll out new drugs that kill the parasite in different ways that are not affected by current resistance is more pressing than ever” says Dr Brendan McMorran from Australian National University.

Learn the facts from all experts here at metafact.io