[SemanticFog]

There's already artemisinin resistance starting in several places around the world, especially the Thai-Cambodia border, a very chaotic area with high endemic malaria.

The main problem is that cheap medications are often out of date or have improper dosage. Also, people stop taking medication when they feel better, but before the parasite is eliminated. The result is resistant parasites survive the treatment, and then spread.

We have maybe a decade of artemisin usability in the hottest areas. Could be more or less depending on how efficient public health practices are. But no way is it a permanent cure.

[sciurus]

The artemisinin resistance is very scary. Cambodia is where Chloroquine resistance developed, which has since spread to Africa. If artemisinin resistance were to become widespread too, it would be a disaster. Containing it is a very tough problem, but there are efforts underway to try. One of the members of my lab is traveling to the area soon to test a new screening method.

http://www.who.int/malaria/diagnosis_treatment/arcp/en/index... http://mango.ctegd.uga.edu/jkissingLab/

[VladRussian]

thanks, i see. With developing resistance and being cheap, i wonder whether the artemisinin would fall off the radar of the industry - i mean it has shown good cancer cell killing efficiency and selectivity in tissue samples and mice, yet i haven't heard about serious research beyond that.