New drug cures and prevents malaria

A new class of drugs called G25 have been found to cure malaria in laboratory animals by disabling the spread of the parasite. It blocks the parasite's ability duplicate itself inside the red blood cells of victims. This might work both to cure the deadly disease and to prevent people from getting it. The drug cured both mice and monkeys infected with malaria. Malaria, which is carried and transmitted by mosquitoes, kills about two million people and infects 500 million people each year. G25 attacks components that the organism uses to build a membrane cover. It is not toxic to the red blood cells that the parasite lives in at one stage of its development. One drawback of the drug is that it must be injected. Scientists from the French research institute Inserm and Montpellier University have been working on it. They reported that small doses of G25 were able to cure infections of two types of malaria in two types of monkeys. The experiments also suggest that it has a very much lower toxicity than the present antimalarial drugs. G25 was found effective but was not the ultimate solution. The researchers are working on a drug that would be better absorbed in the mouth and the gastrointestinal tract. In countries like Africa and Asia where the disease is most prevalent it is important to have a drug in the pill form considering the high incidents of HIV/AIDS and the dangers of their spread through infected needles. However the possibility in the near future of a less toxic and effective drug against malaria is good news.

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