[ti:Drug-Resistant Malaria Spreads in Southeast Asia] [ar:Anna Matteo] [al:Health Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, this is the Health Report. [00:05.09]On Thailand's border with Myanmar, also known as Burma, [00:10.20]a malaria research and treatment center [00:13.57]is increasing efforts to kill, or eliminate, [00:18.26]a drug-resistant form of the parasite before it spreads abroad. [00:23.29]VOA correspondent Steve Sandford reports from Thailand. [00:29.48]A health center near a busy border crossing in Thailand [00:34.32]has had great success over the last 20 years [00:39.04]in reducing the effect of malaria. [00:41.99]Cases of the disease have greatly decreased. [00:46.43]But doctors like Cindy Chu remain worried. [00:50.78]"We used to see a lot of malaria at the Wangpha clinic [00:54.97]but now with efforts of elimination [00:59.56]and active surveillance and even the setting up of malaria posts [01:04.18]on the other side of the border, [01:05.34]the malaria rates have really gone down. [01:07.93]So we don't see as much malaria as we used to. [01:10.97]On the other hand, [01:12.06]the malaria that we do see is more complicated. [01:15.10]And because of artemisinin resistance, [01:18.28]the cases we see here require additional therapy." [01:22.83]Medicines called Artemisinin have been highly effective [01:28.16]against malaria when used in combination with other drugs. [01:33.19]Using a combination of drugs is called a "cocktail." [01:37.88]But in five countries in Southeast Asia -- [01:41.36]Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos -- [01:47.63]the malaria organism, or parasite, [01:51.41]has developed a resistance to the treatment. [01:54.86]Drug-resistant means that the drug no longer treats the disease. [02:00.23]Doctors can still treat infected patients with stronger drug cocktails. [02:07.07]But they worry that it is just a matter of time [02:11.60]before those medicines also become ineffective. [02:15.98]Dr. Francois Nosten has been leading research on the Thai - [02:21.42]Myanmar border for the past 30 years. [02:25.01]He says that the clock is ticking, meaning time is running out. [02:31.24]"This is a global public health emergency [02:33.77]because we could see in our studies [02:38.01]that the progression of resistance is quite fast. [02:40.61]For example in 2007 none of the patients [02:45.00]were infected with a resistant parasite. [02:47.54]In 2012, 80% of the patients are infected with the resistant parasite, [02:52.39]so in just a few years [02:53.93]the majority of the infections are caused by the resistant parasite." [02:58.56]Dr. Nosten wants a stronger method [03:01.84]of dealing with resistant malaria to control its spread. [03:06.12]He wants to give medicine to whole villages [03:09.97]where the parasite can lie inactive and unseen in many people. [03:15.79]"What we predict is in order to stop the progression of artemisinin resistance, [03:21.28]we need to eliminate malaria. [03:22.72]It's not good to just reduce the number of cases, [03:26.51]reduce the transmission of the disease, [03:28.81]we need to eliminate the parasite." [03:30.31]Medical teams are making plans to give anti-malarial drugs [03:35.34]in villages where many cases of malaria have been reported. [03:40.23]Many are hoping that this effort [03:43.55]will stop the spread of an increasingly dangerous parasite. [03:48.29]I'm Anna Matteo.