‘Super malaria’ strains resistant to drugs spreading in Southeast Asia

Scientists warn that ‘super malaria’, a strain resistant to most anti-malarial drugs, is rapidly spreading in southeast Asia, the BBC reports.

The strain, which started in Cambodia, has spread to Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam.

There is a real danger that malaria could become untreatable, an Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit team in Bangkok said.

“We think it is a serious threat,” unit chief Prof Arjen Dondorp told BBC News.

"It is alarming that this strain is spreading so quickly through the whole region and we fear it can spread further [and eventually] jump to Africa."

Ninety-two percent of all malaria cases occur in Africa.

Malaria is usually treated with a combination of artemisinin and piperaquine, but a recent development has seen the malaria parasite growing more resistant to both drugs.

There have been ‘alarming rates of failure’, the researchers said in a letter published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

The treatment is failing approximately 33 percent of the time in Vietnam ,and parts of Cambodia have a failure rate close to 60 percent, Prof Dondorp told the BBC.

An effort is being made to eliminate malaria in the Greater Mekong sub-region before it spreads further.

"It's a race against the clock - we have to eliminate it before malaria becomes untreatable again and we see a lot of deaths,” said Prof Dondorp. "If I'm honest, I'm quite worried."

Approximately 212 million are infected with malaria each year, according to the World Health Organisation.