Malaria continues to mutate and becoming more resistant to the widely used medicines. Health Experts discourage self treatment insisting patients be tested before any malaria drugs are prescribed.
Experts warn that a resistant strain of malaria could be reportedly spreading in East Africa. It’s alleged that Self-treatment could make malaria drugs less effective.
Blood samples collected from foreigners who had visited Kenya and other countries in Africa between 2008 and 2011 have shown the parasite is building resistance to a key ingredient in malaria medicines called artemether.
Malaria has been resistant to widely used medicines for the past eight years.
The medicines that are derived from a compound called ARTEMISININ, was thought to have been contained in a small area on Thailand’s border with Cambodia and Myanmar.
However, results released on Friday indicate that the difficult to treat strain has either spread to Kenya and other countries in Africa or the local parasite has developed resistance.
According to the study by researchers at St George’s University in London published in the Malaria Journal, of the 28 samples tested 11 were resistant to artemether, some as high as 50%.
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