“Malaria is the deadliest killer disease ever known.”
We’re all pretty tired of hateful headlines, cheap shots, and toxic spins in the media these days. How about a little good news. Well, a lot of good news, actually. As much as Covid-19 has killed people, and torn this country apart, the big historical, international killer, back to the Neolithic Era (the beginning of agriculture), has been malaria.
In the most recent estimates from 2019, kids are hit the worst.
In 2019, there were an estimated 229 million cases of malaria worldwide. The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 409,000 in 2019. Children aged under 5 years are the most vulnerable group affected by malaria; in 2019, they accounted for 67% (274 000) of all malaria deaths worldwide.
Believe it or not, 409 thousand deaths in one year is an improvement.
In 2000, over 700,000 people died from malaria. Tools like insecticide-laced nets (which reduce deaths from malaria in children under five by about 20 percent) and antimalarial drugs have brought that number down to around 400,000 deaths. But these numbers haven’t budged much since 2015.
By comparison, almost FIVE MILLION deaths from Covid 19 worldwide, and over 700,000 just in America Covid deaths in 2020 and 2021.
It’s been around for many thousands of years.
Malaria occupies a unique place in the annals of history. Over millennia, its victims have included Neolithic dwellers, early Chinese and Greeks, princes and paupers. In the 20th century alone, malaria claimed between 150 million and 300 million lives, accounting for 2 to 5 percent of all deaths (Carter and Mendis, 2002). . .
Ancient writings and artifacts testify to malaria’s long reign. Clay tablets with cuneiform script from Mesopotamia mention deadly periodic fevers suggestive of malaria. Malaria antigen was recently detected in Egyptian remains dating from 3200 and 1304 BC (Miller et al., 1994). Indian writings of the Vedic period (1500 to 800 BC) called malaria the “king of diseases.”. . .
Malaria, both epidemic and endemic, continued to plague the United States until the early 20th century. It struck presidents from Washington to Lincoln, weakened Civil War soldiers by the hundreds of thousands (in 1862, Washington, D.C., and its surroundings were so malarious that General McClellan’s Army en route to Yorktown was stopped in its tracks), traveled to California with the Gold Rush, and claimed Native American lives across the continent.
Now, for the good news. We’re finally making significant progress against the disease. And while we have Covid vaccines that are up to 90% effective, we have to settle for 50%, for now, with malaria, with a vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline. But wait! There’s more! In Phase 2, we’re getting 90-100% effectiveness!
A cancer drug repurposed to treat malaria has been shown to be nearly 100% effective in helping to defeat the disease in just three days. This is according to the results of a Phase 2 clinical trial, the results of which were published recently in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. . .
The trial of the therapeutic drug shows that addition of the drug Imatinib to the customary malaria therapy enables clearance of all malaria parasites from 90% of patients within 48 hours and from 100% of patients within three days, says Philip Low (rhymes with “now”), Purdue University’s Presidential Scholar for Drug Discovery and the Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the College of Science, who co-directed the international research team.
The exciting thing about Imatinib, by Novartis, is that it may not be susceptible to having malaria mutate to become immune to it.
Malaria infects human red blood cells, where it reproduces and eventually activates a red blood cell enzyme that in turn triggers rupture of the cell and release of a form of the parasite called a merozoite into the bloodstream. Low and his colleagues theorized that by blocking the critical red blood cell enzyme, they could stop the infection. The data from the drug trial confirms that. . .
Low said that for the past 50 years, malaria treatments have used drugs that target the parasite itself, but the microorganism eventually developed resistance to the drugs. “Because we’re targeting an enzyme that belongs to the red blood cell, the parasite can’t mutate to develop resistance — it simply can’t mutate proteins in our blood cells,” Low said.
While Covid is spread by a virus, malaria is a parasite that is spread by another parasite—mosquitoes. More precisely, female mosquitoes–so there have also been efforts to control mosquito populations by using male mosquitoes against female mosquitoes.
Also, altering the DNA of mosquitoes. More research suggests that climate change will cause an increased danger from malaria. And we are now building houses specifically to protect against malaria.
Malaria has been out-of-sight/out-of-mind in America, since it’s been largely eradicated here. However, we did have a high of infections in 2017, with 1,290 cases. This is serious, because as we have seen with Covid, the more prevalent it is, the more likely a disease will find a way to survive our efforts to fight it.
China has also been successful in beating malaria—and has worked to fight the disease in other countries. The Chinese have gone from 30,000 cases a year—to zero. (That doesn’t count the estimated 30,000 cases that come in with visitors.)
“China has enormous capacity and potential for innovation and a strong commitment to help address the health and development challenges facing developing countries,” said Yang Jianyue, deputy director of the Gates Foundation’s China office. . .
Artemisinin-based drugs, together with other large prevention and control measures, helped China bring the incidence of malaria from 30 million cases a year in the 1940s to 30,000 a year in the late 1990s. . .
The strategy requires reported malaria cases to be confirmed within one day, investigated by a local public health facility within three days and authorities to have control measures in place to prevent further transmission within seven days. China has not reported any local transmission since 2017.
So, there you are. Good news. Now we can go back to our regularly scheduled media diet of doom and gloom—and “schadenfreude” (glee at the misfortunes of other people).
