|
High rates of the most effective type of malaria-fighting drugs sold in three African countries are poor quality — including nearly half the pills sampled in Senegal — raising fears of increased drug resistance that could wipe out the last weapon left to battle a disease that kills 1 million people each year, according to a U.S. report released Monday.
Between 16 percent and 40 percent of artemisinin-based drugs sold in Senegal, Madagascar and Uganda failed quality testing, including having impurities or not containing enough active ingredient, the survey found.
Artemisinin-based drugs are the only affordable treatment for malaria left in the global medicine cabinet. Other drugs have already lost effectiveness due to resistance, which builds when not enough medicine is taken to kill all of the mosquito-transmitted parasites.
|