Malaria: parasite resistance to artemisinin derivatives now affecting Africa

Resistance to artemisinin, the main component of the current antimalarial treatments recommended by WHO, is already widespread in South-East Asia, but it had not previously been described in Africa. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with the National Malaria Control Program in Rwanda (Rwanda Biomedical Center), the World Health Organization (WHO), Cochin Hospital and Columbia University (New York, USA), recently detected the emergence and spread of malaria parasites capable of resisting artemisinin derivatives for the first time in Rwanda. The results of the research were published in Nature Medicine.

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