A highly drug-resistant strain of malaria dubbed “super malaria” is spreading rapidly in South East Asia, leading scientists to warn that it could soon be a global threat. The disease, most commonly transmitted by mosquitoes infected with the parasite, was first detected in Cambodia in 2008 but has now spread to the three remaining countries that make up the Eastern Greater Mekong subregion: Vietnam, Laos and
Thailand. In a letter, published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, the team studying the spread of the disease from the Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, said the rapid spread “presents one of the greatest threats to the control and elimination of malaria.” Adding that the fact it is mostly drug resistant is a “sinister development”. READ MORE
