‘Malaysia needs to be vigilant about drug-resistant malaria’

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia needs to be vigilant because a “super malaria” is spreading across South-East Asia, says an expert on infectious diseases.

Universiti Malaya medical faculty dean Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman said malaria parasites – as with many organisms – inevitably develop resistance to the drugs used to combat them.

“This underscores a huge problem that we face globally – the increasing problem of drug resistance, be it among bacteria or para- sites. We need to be one step ahead,” she said in an interview.

Scientists warned that this super malaria spreading in the region poses an alarming and potentially global threat, the BBC reported, quoting The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal recently.

The Plasmodium falsiparum parasite, spread by mosquitoes, could not be killed by the anti-parasitic drug artemisinin.

Cases of drug-resistant parasites first emerged in Cambodia and have since spread to parts of Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam.

A team at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok said there was a real danger of malaria becoming untreatable.

Dr Adeeba said malaria resistance has actually been around for a long time.

“We have been fortunate that we don’t have many P. falsiparum infections in this country and we don’t see much of a problem with it.

“But in parts of South-East Asia such as Thailand, parts of the Burmese region and parts of Africa, drug-resistant malaria has always been a big problem,” she said.

She said Malaysia had been quite fortunate so far that infection with parasitic strains such as P. vivax, for instance, has remained sensitive to first-line treatment.

But she said Malaysia should be vigilant of the development of drug resistance regardless of the type of malaria species.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said thus far, malaria cases in Malaysia have not been a major issue.

“There are some that are resistant to some basic drugs but we have alternatives.

“We can still manage. Unless we find resistance to all other drugs, then we have a problem,” he said yesterday at the 11th National Conference for Clinical Research in conjunction with the 5th Reacta Forum 2017.

He also launched the Malaysian Medical Research Repository, or MyMedR.

This underscores a huge problem that we face globally – the increasing problem of drug resistance.

Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman