Correspondents' Correspondence Fighting Malaria
LAND, THOMAS
Fighting Malaria Paris—A collaborative venture involving scientists in France and Israel has produced a promising new weapon against malaria, still a very common and widespread killer. Experts...
...A drug-resistant strain from Africa has just been confirmed in the United States...
...The recent epidemic in Turkey portends the reintroduction of malaria into Europe, long free of it...
...And worldwide the number of reported cases has more than doubled in the past five years, with some countries experiencing a 40-fold increase...
...A second factor is that Plasmodium, the disease agent itself, has grown resistant to certain antimalarial drugs...
...WHO's research program linking national and international efforts against parasitic diseases has a yearly budget in excess of $25 million...
...The work leading to the present optimism began last year when scientists in Israel retrieved some pond samples of bacteria-infested dead mosquito larvae...
...In Canada, where there were seven known cases in 1972, the figure rose to 100 by 1977...
...Laboratory tests have borne out this phenomenon and large-scale field trials are scheduled to be held shortly, probably in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Indonesia...
...Death occurs very quickly...
...If, as is expected, the findings are confirmed, the new bacteriological weapon will be developed in a major health offensive...
...The new bacterial form has crystals and structural properties that differentiate it from the rest of the species...
...It is particularly virulent in Central and South America, the Mediterranean countries, parts of Africa, and in Asia...
...But the World Bank has recently joined the coordinating board of the project—testimony to its economic importance...
...Malaria and the other diseases mentioned have been hampering industrial development by debilitating local populations...
...These novel characteristics lend it a toxicity that acts selectively on the larvae of the insect order, a category that includes the disease-carrying mosquitoes and sand flies...
...All have been subject to an intensive, broad-based international research program coordinated by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva...
...In addition, poorly planned man-made lakes and irrigation schemes, intended to improve local living conditions, have in many areas?especially Africa—altered the ecology in a manner conducive to the breeding of disease-carrying mosquitos...
...Hopes are high now for reversing the current distressing trends...
...The new bacteria works in the following manner: As soon as a larva ingests the crystal, its digestive tract becomes paralyzed and nutrient intake ceases...
...WHO sent the bacteria cultures to Paris for further study, and eventually they were identified as a hitherto unknown variety of Bacillus thuringi-enis...
...But no region of the world is entirely safe...
...A highly lethal and selective bacterium, identified by scientists attached to the Pasteur Institute here and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, appears likely to prove an effective basic medical tool in the fight against malaria and a host of other parasitic diseases, including yellow fever, filariasis, dengue, encephalitis, and ochocerciasis (river blindness...
...Now, inspired by the latest breakthrough, the European office of the World Bank says the financial organization will place special emphasis on integrating preventive and curative measures in the development undertakings it finances.—Thomas Land...
...Experts estimate that over a billion people are directly threatened by infection from the Anopheles mosquito—the carrier?making the disease more menacing than any other single health hazard...
...One reason for the devastating success of malaria is that in certain environments the mosquito responsible for its spread has developed an immunity to DDT and other widely used chemical insecticides...
Vol. 62 • October 1979 • No. 19
