Drug-resistant malaria might be spreading in Africa, study suggests

A strain of malaria that is resistant to artemether, the main ingredient in Coartem, a widely used drug to treat the disease, may be spreading in Africa, according to a study published Thursday in Malaria Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. "Studies in Cambodia and Thailand have shown that drugs based on artemisinin, the class of remedies to which artemether belongs, are becoming less effective there," the news service writes, adding that study author Sanjeev Krishna of the University of London said, "Drug resistance could eventually become a devastating problem in Africa, and not just in southeast Asia where most of the world is watching for resistance." According to the authors, "[t]he effectiveness of other artemisinin-based drugs, such as artesunate, wasn't significantly affected by the mutations," the news service states (Bennett, 4/26).