Word: falciparum
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Using bone samples from five children, Robert Sallares, a research fellow at the University of Manchester in England, succeeded in obtaining snatches of malarial DNA from just one skeleton. The 1,500-year-old DNA matched that of P. falciparum, the most virulent form of malaria...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Plasmodium falciparum. Staphylococcus aureus. Streptococcus pneumoniae. Enterococcus faecium. Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The list of microbial scourges that have developed immunity to one or more of the drugs used to treat them is growing ever longer, and in a number of cases physicians are running out of options. In U.S. hospitals, more than 20% of all enterococcus infections, which include infections of the gastrointestinal tract, heart valve and blood, are now resistant to vancomycin, for many years the antibiotic of last resort. Even more worrisome, insensitivity to vancomycin--which nurses and physicians in intensive-care units refer...
...nature fought back, however. War in Southeast Asia and political instability in countries like Idi Amin's Uganda interfered with eradication efforts. Premature reports of success against malaria led some health authorities to relax their vigilance. Then came the worst blows of all: in the mid-1960s, Plasmodium falciparum, the most lethal of the four species of parasite that cause human malaria, showed signs of becoming resistant to chloroquine. Soon there were resistant strains on three continents. About the same time, health officials around the Mediterranean began to find mosquitoes that were immune to DDT. It was a classic...
...vaccines alone will not defeat this resilient organism. "Controlling malaria will take all the resources we have: insecticides and drugs, as well as vaccines," says Top. Drug research is continuing at Walter Reed and elsewhere. Mefloquine, discovered by the Army in 1974, remains about 98% effective against the deadly falciparum strain, but signs of resistance are already appearing. Quinghaosu, a Chinese drug derived from the wormwood plant, is "extremely promising," according to Lucas of WHO. But because drug resistance develops quickly, the search cannot stop. Says Top: "If we don't put out a good malaria control drug every...
...vicious falciparum type of malaria parasite is responsible for virtually all the malaria that strikes U.S. troops, despite their "Sunday pill" of chloroquine and pyrimethamine. These parasites even overcome the protective effect of a potent third antimalarial, dia-phenylsulfone (DOS), given to troops in the highlands. Falciparum's fever may be fatal if it attacks the brain. Last winter U.S. medics were saving nearly all their patients by intensive treatment with chloroquine and quinine, but 40% of the men suffered relapses...