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Sharjah 24 / AFP:
An international team of researchers has adopted a new approach to fight malaria by eliminating parasites that spread to the liver before they reach the blood.
Female mosquitoes transmit plasmodium parasites that multiply in the liver before circulating in the blood after about 10 days.
At this point, the symptoms of the disease begin to appear: fever and headache, joint pain, anemia and breathing problems can be fatal.
The disease kills half a million people a year, the majority of whom are children from Africa.
An international team of researchers who published the results of his research in the journal Science is working on a way to eliminate liver parasites before they reach the bloodstream and cause symptoms of the most antimalarial drugs attack blood parasites.
Elizabeth Winsler, professor of pharmacology at the University of California at San Diego, said the main interest of the research is that it is very difficult to focus on the liver phase. The cells are hard to reach and the risk of side effects increases.
"We have always tried to develop drugs that eliminate the disease, rather than treatments that eliminate the parasites before they cause the disease.
Travelers from Africa and Southeast Asia can take preventative pills and reduce the risk of infection with insecticide-treated mosquito nets.
Effective drugs are available to treat the infection, but less than one in three children benefited from it last year, according to the World Health Organization.
Despite billions of dollars in investments, the world has not yet found a radical solution to malaria.
Jean-Godard, professor of public health at the University of Aix-Marseille, said in a statement that the results of this research are encouraging, provided that the effectiveness is long-term for several years. months, highlighting the need to develop new particles.
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