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Malaria’s Weakest Link

Started by Tank, March 08, 2011, 08:54:15 PM

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Tank

Malaria’s Weakest Link: Class of Chemotherapy Drugs Also Kills the Parasite That Causes Malaria

QuoteScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2011) â€" A group of researchers from EPFL's Global Health Institute (GHI) and Inserm (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, the French government agency for biomedical research) has discovered that a class of chemotherapy drugs originally designed to inhibit key signaling pathways in cancer cells also kills the parasite that causes malaria. The discovery could quickly open up a whole new strategy for combating this deadly disease.

Serendipitous discovery that could save millions of lives each year.
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iSok

I never really understood why Malaria kills so many people.

I myself got it atleast 10 times I think.
The first 6 years of my life, I spent in Afghanistan. Each summer I would get malaria.
In 2007, during holidays in Afghanistan, I got it again.

The only medecines available were paracetamols.
Getting high on paracetamols + a few days of heavy fever and it was over.

In my village (I'm from Khost, southern Afghanistan) it is as common as the flu, it just happens during the summer.

So why do so many people still die?

Qur'an [49:13] - "O Mankind, We created you all from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another. Verily the noblest of you in the sight of God is the most God-fearing of you. Surely God is All-Knowing, All-Aware."

hismikeness

Quote from: "iSok"In my village (I'm from Khost, southern Afghanistan) it is as common as the flu, it just happens during the summer.

So why do so many people still die?

Probably for the same reason many people die from the flu each year. I would imagine that malaria affects different people very differently, and certain people might be able to better fight off the disease. If someone is immunocompramized and gets malaria, their outlook is probably very similar to those who get the flu under the same circumstances; ie, not good.
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The Magic Pudding

Cycle Cell Anaemia is an example of a genetic difference between people (+descendants) from malaria prone areas and those who aren't.

QuoteSickle-cell disease, usually presenting in childhood, occurs more commonly in people (or their descendants) from parts of tropical and sub-tropical regions where malaria is or was common. One-third of all indigenous inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa carry the gene,[2] because in areas where malaria is common, there is a fitness benefit in carrying only a single sickle-cell gene (sickle cell trait). Those with only one of the two alleles of the sickle-cell disease, while not more resistant, are more tolerant of infection and thus show less severe symptoms when infected.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease