WHO describe challenge with drug resistance and warn against using monotherapies

The WHO Asia Regional unit has recently emphasized that the threat of artemisin resistance is not diminshing in the region. The WHO team also highlighted to government leaders and malaria advocactes that theire is a dangerous impact on drug effectiveness if clinics and hospitals use just one antimalarial (monotherapy) to treat malaria patients.

Malaria experts from the World Health Organization Western Pacific Region recently met with the Access to Quality Medicines and other Technologies Taskforce (AQMTF). Together with key partners there is reported agreement amongst these experts that the threat of widespread anti-malarial drug resistance remains and must be dealt with urgently.

Artemisinin based combination therapies (ACTs) are currently the most effective first line anti-malarial drug used to treat patients with malaria. The WHO estimate there are more than 207 million cases of malaria each year resulting in 627,000 deaths, most of whom are small children in Africa.

If ACTs are rendered ineffective at killing some of the most deadly malaria parasites, then it is possible that the impressive gains that have been made in recent years to save lives will be diminished. 

Dr Walter Kazadi, WHO Regional Hub Coordinator, Emergency Response to Artemisinin Resistance (ERAR) in the Greater Mekong Subregion stresses in the WHO's latest media release, “Countries and health partners need to work on urgently to effectively ban monotherapies and help enforce such measures. Make no mistake – if artemisinin becomes ineffective, we will not only lose one of our most powerful weapons in the battle against malaria, it will be a global disaster.”

Read the full WHO media release (Manila, March 18).