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Observing World Malaria Day 2012: Sustain Gains, Save Lives

Today is the fifth annual World Malaria Day, commemorated every April 25 to recognize and encourage global efforts to control malaria. This year’s theme, “Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria,” alludes to the many important advances against the malaria parasite that have been achieved in recent years, but also includes a warning: we must continue to invest in malaria research and maintain our vigilance to ensure that painstakingly earned gains are not surrendered to complacency.

Based on the 251 malaria-related PLoS ONE papers published since last year’s World Malaria Day, it’s pretty clear to us that the research community is maintaining its commitment to this disease. Instead of trying to provide an overview of all of these articles, which cover perspectives as diverse as public health, ecology, and microbiology, we decided to observe the day by highlighting a single article that, like this year’s theme, emphasizes the importance of continued research as the parasite proves itself to be a constantly evolving target.

The study, published last October, monitors drug resistance in the causative parasite Plasmodium falciparum in Mozambique over five years, from 2006 to 2010, as the recommended drug treatment was adjusted. The researchers, led by Jaishree Raman of the South African Medical Research Council, found that the incidence of parasitic resistance to the originally recommended drug regimen increased significantly over the course of the study, from 56.2% at the start up to 75.8% in 2010. This approximately 20% leap in resistance suggested that the preferred treatment at the time would become much less effective as its use increased.

However, the Mozambican Ministry of Healthy preempted this scenario by changing their recommended front-line drug treatment in 2008. The authors weren’t able to study the full impact of this policy change, though, because it was not fully deployed until 2010, at which point the study was winding down – further highlighting the need for continued careful monitoring as new treatments are introduced.

You can learn more about World Malaria Day at Roll Back Malaria and the World Health Organization, and read about some additional malaria papers from last year’s World Malaria day post.

Citation: Raman J, Mauff K, Muianga P, Mussa A, Maharaj R, et al. (2011) Five Years of Antimalarial Resistance Marker Surveillance in Gaza Province, Mozambique, Following Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapy Roll Out. PLoS ONE 6(10): e25992. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025992

Image source: eyeweed on Flickr

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