Cancer drugs can also kill malaria parasites, researchers discover

By Masuzyo Chakwe, Agness Changala and Sututu Katundu
Wed 27 Apr. 2011, 04:01 CAT


EUROPEAN Union funded researchers have discovered that drugs originally designed to inhibit the growth of cancer cells can also kill the parasite that causes malaria.

According to a statement from the EU to mark the World Malaria Day which fell on Monday, the researchers believed this discovery could open up a new strategy for combating this deadly disease.

“Efforts to find a treatment have so far been hampered by the parasite’s ability to quickly develop drug resistance. The research involved four projects funded by the EU (Antimal, Biomalpar, Malsig and Evimalar) and was led by laboratories in the UK, France and Switzerland with partners from Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden, along with many developing nations severely affected by malaria,î stated the EU.

Research, innovation and science commissioner M·ire Geoghegan-Quinn said this discovery could lead to an effective anti-malaria treatment that would save millions of lives and transform countless others.

The EU stated that the ultimate goal was the complete eradication of the global scourge of malaria and collaborative work across many borders is the only way of confronting such global challenges effectively.

And Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign (TALC) country coordinator Felix Mwanza said the World Health Organisation recently amended its guidelines for severe malaria to include Artesunate as treatment for both children and adults to save more lives against malaria the leading killer disease for people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mwanza appealed to the Ministry of Health to urgently include Artesunate as a severe anti-malaria treatment drug in public health centres in accordance with the WHO Guidelines.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in a statement released to the Partners Forum for the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) noted that the MSF Access to essential medicines campaign recently released a new report concerning treatment for severe malaria in children for which there were currently eight million severe malaria cases worldwide annually, mostly in Africa, and many among children.

And World Health Organisation regional director for Africa Dr Luis Gomes Sambo said rigorous governance is needed to strengthen the performance and accountability in the fight against malaria.

In his message to mark World Malaria Day under the theme ‘Achieving Progress and Impact', Dr Sambo observed that mobilisation of additional resources, linking disease programme development and health systems strengthening, better coordination of stakeholders and partners under national stewardship, effective involvement of every exposed individual and community were also needed.

Dr Sambo, however, noted that countries and partners were making commendable efforts to accelerate and sustain progress in malaria prevention and control in the region.

And UNICEF said global malaria deaths have dropped by 20 per cent between 2000 and 2009.

According to a press release for the world malaria day, statistics show that many thousands of individual children’s lives, malaria is the third single biggest killer of children globally.

The report stated that an estimated 800,000 people die every year from the disease, with approximately 90 per cent of these deaths occurring in Africa, where malaria accounts for about one in six of all childhood deaths.