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TEMPO.CO, Dakar – An anti-mosquito drug tested in Burkina Faso reduces malaria a fifth of children and could be an important new tool in the global fight against the disease, said researchers.
The drug, ivermectin, is already widely used to treat parasitic infections but has not yet been tested for its effects on malaria incidence, said Brian Foy, author of a study published this week in the British medical journal The Lancet.
The study shows that when people take ivermectin, their blood is deadly to the mosquitoes that bit them, which reduces the chance that others will get bitten and infected.
Foy said that it could potentially be used in combination with others malaria control methods to protect more people.
"This adds another important tool to malaria control toolbox that we really need, because malaria the gains are slowing down, "Foy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
After several years of steady decline, annual cases of mosquito-borne disease have stabilized, according to the US Health Agency for 2018 malaria report.
Malaria infects more than 200 million people a year and killed 435,000 in 2017, mostly in Africa.
The drug trial involved 2,700 people, including 590 children, from eight villages in Burkina Faso.
In drug-free villages, there was an average of 2.5 malaria number of cases per child during peak mosquito season, but in the villages that received the drug, the number of cases dropped to two cases per child.
The number of children who did not catch malaria at all more than doubled in the group that received the drug, Foy said.
Scientists say that the fight against malaria in part because mosquitoes have become resistant to the type of insecticide commonly used on mosquito nets.
Other control methods tested include a vaccine and genetic modifications to prevent mosquito breeding.
"With the impending resistance to drugs and insecticides, it is widely accepted that new approaches to malaria we have an urgent need, "said Chris Drakeley, professor of infection and immunity at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The trial was small and there could be logistical difficulties in scaling up as it required several rounds of mbad drug administration, he said, but the results are promising.
"This study is the first of its kind to demonstrate the effect at the community level, highlighting a potential new avenue for malaria control, "said Drakeley.
REUTERS
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