Nacario's Digital Scrapbook

• Malaria has infected 250 million people in the world and has killed 1 million, mostly kids, because of it.
  
• Malaria has grown stronger in resistance to drugs and may some day become incurable because the strongest drug, artemisinin has been ineffective in a strain of malaria in Western Cambodia.
• If this strain grows and spreads to the rest of the world, a pandemic can arise. Scientists push for newer ways to combat malaria with drug combinations, which can halt the evolution of pathogens. The purpose of drug combos is to have the 2 or more drugs insure the other, in other words if one drug kills some but not all pathogens, the other drug(s) can kill them as well before they adapt and evolve.
• The people of West Cambodia do not use the correct treatments to help stop malaria evolution. They prefer a single drug like artemisinin only. They do not take the second drug that should be used with artemisinin, called mefloquine, which can have some serious side effects.
  
• The black market also gives below standard medications to people to fight malaria but instead they increase the disease's resistance to drugs. The global medical community has come together to stop this evolution in malaria and have committed themselves to make programs to provide proper treatment of malaria to stop its evolution.
• This topic relates to evolution in our class. The evolution of malaria relates to our discussion of mosquitoes in a barn. The same drug is used repeatedly in Cambodia and newer strains come back stronger, making a drug less effective. If the strain continues to evolve, then the drug will become useless. The idea of drug combos to stop the evolution of malaria will give better odds of killing the entire pathogen, instead of leaving behind very few that can come back stronger.

Malaria is a very dangerous disease is left untreated. I am astounded at the amount of people infected and killed by malaria. I am lucky like many others in America to live where malaria is no real threat, especially here in San Francisco. I am fearful of the fact that malaria has been growing stronger and more resistant to drugs and I hope that drug combos can defeat malaria. I agree with the way the article talks about combating strong strains of malaria. We cannot use the best drug we have to destroy malaria because if we do that all the time, then the disease will simply come back stronger and stronger. Also, if we use the best drug, and the disease evolves, all drugs that are weaker to it will be less effective, or cease to be effective at all. The money for expensive drugs alone are futile, we must use drugs wisely. Instead of one, expensive drug, why not use 2-3 different drugs that cost much cheaper? In doing so we can reduce costs for medicine, improve chances of killing a pathogen completely, and halt the evolution of "super" malaria.