ELQ-300. Sexy name. They need to work on that. 'Plasmodysplat' perhaps? Falciparumide? Malaribang? Why is it good news? According to the World Health Organisation:
About 3.3 billion people – half of the world's population – are at risk of malaria. In 2010, there were about 216 million malaria cases (with an uncertainty range of 149 million to 274 million) and an estimated 655 000 malaria deaths (with an uncertainty range of 537 000 to 907 000). Increased prevention and control measures have led to a reduction in malaria mortality rates by more than 25% globally since 2000 and by 33% in the WHO African Region.
Apart from the deaths and associated trauma, malaria is extremely debilitating so people's ability to be self supporting is severely compromised. And global warming is bringing an infected mozzie to your first world home sometime soon. Since NS articles disappear for non subscribers after a fairly short time, here's the article:
"There's nowhere to hide". Michael Riscoe of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is talking about Plasmodium falciparum – a species of parasite that causes the most dangerous kind of malaria. His team's new drug hits the parasites at three vital stages in their life cycle, in blood, in the liver and in mosquitoes too. Most existing drugs only kill the parasite in blood.
The drug, called ELQ-300, wrecks the parasites' ability to reproduce by disabling their mitochondria, the factories that produce two of the building blocks they need to make DNA. The drug does not harm human mitochondria, which produce energy rather than DNA.
ELQ-300 rapidly cured infected mice and killed parasites in mosquitoes that were allowed to feed on the mice shortly after infection, blocking further transmission to new victims.
Riscoe says that if ELQ-300 passes the obligatory safety tests, trials could begin in humans within two years.
"This is an excellent evaluation of an exciting new series of antimalarial drugs," says Nick White of the Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand, a country where resistance is developing fast to artemisinins, the most potent class of antimalarial drugs now in use. "Let's hope they make it through to the clinic," he says.
Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine, doi.org/kwk
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