Tracing resistance to the antimalarial drug sulfadoxine across Africa
Citation: Pearce RJ, Pota H, Evehe M-SB, Ba E-H, Mombo-Ngoma G, et al. (2009) Multiple Origins and Regional Dispersal of Resistant dhps in African Plasmodium falciparum Malaria. PLoS Med 6(4): e1000055. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000055
FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000055
In research published in PLoS Medicine, Cally Roper of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and colleagues use genetic analyses to trace the emergence and dispersal of drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Africa.
They find that resistance to the antimalarial drug sulfadoxine has emerged independently in multiple sites in Africa during the past 10-20 years, and that the molecular basis of resistance differs between east and west Africa. Given the potential for different levels of drug resistance associated with these different parasite strains, the results suggest that coordinated malaria control campaigns across socio-economically linked areas in Africa
may reduce the African malaria burden more effectively than campaigns that are confined to national territories.
In a related expert commentary on the new study, Tim Anderson of the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, who was not involved in the study, notes: "this unusually large data set provides an extraordinarily fine-grained view of the spread of resistance alleles across Africa."
READ THE EDITORS'SUMMARY OF THE PAPER: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-06-04-roper-summary.pdf
CONTACT:
Cally Roper
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Department of Infectious Tropical Diseases
Keppel Street
London, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom
+44 207 927 2331
Cally.Roper@lshtm.ac.uk
PRESS CONTACT:
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Press Office
+44 (0) 207 927 2073/2802
gemma.howe@lshtm.ac.uk or lindsay.wright@lshtm.ac.uk
Related PLoS Medicine Perspective:
Citation: Anderson T (2009) Mapping the Spread of Malaria Drug Resistance. PLoS Med 6(4): e1000054. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000054
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000054