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VIDEO: Session on malaria highlights new diagnostic and treatment efforts
NEW ORLEANS — In this video from ASM Microbe, Audrey R. Odom John, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics, infectious diseases, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, reviews a session about the latest strategies to diagnose and treat malaria.
“The challenges of malaria are really obvious. This is still a huge public health problem,” Odom John said. “To give you a sense of how far we have to go, right now there are over 400,000 deaths — still — per year due to malaria and almost all of them are children under the age of 5 or pregnant women.”
Odom John explained that malaria control is being threatened by resistance to all major classes of drugs, including emerging resistance to the front-line therapy. However, she noted, “The landscape of antimalarial drug development” — including work on a single-dose cure — “has never looked better.”
As malaria diagnostics lose effectiveness, Odom John said researchers are also searching for new ways to diagnose the disease. Among the strategies being explored is a breath-based test.
Disclosure: Odom John reports no relevant financial disclosures.