Cautious optimism as malaria drug cocktail makes a comeback

[geovalin]

Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon

Amid mounting international concern over the emergence of drug-resistant malaria in the Kingdom’s western provinces, a drug cocktail discontinued in 2008 has been reintroduced to stunning success – though how long that success can be sustained is uncertain.

At the end of 2015, failure rates of Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHA-PIP) surpassed 60 per cent in Siem Reap and 30 to 40 per cent in Oddar Meanchey, Stung Treng and Battambang provinces, according to Dr Luciano Tuseo, the Malaria program director for the World Health Organization in Cambodia.

“Further increase in multi-drug resistance including artemisinin resistance could lead to the resurgence of malaria not only in Cambodia” but in other countries as well, a “dire” threat that was emphasised at the launch of the Ministry of Health’s new malaria elimination plan, which warned that “no alternative” was available with the same efficacy.

read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cautious-optimism-malaria-drug-cocktail-makes-comeback