Antimalarial drug resistance: the pace quickens

For an infection affecting approximately 5% of the World's population at any time, and killing between one and two million children each year, there are remarkably few drugs available for the treatment of falciparum malaria. Traditionally, antimalarial drug research has been stimulated by wars in tropical malarious areas involving economically-powerful temperate-climate powers. Armies fighting in the tropics lose more soldiers to malaria than bullets (Melville, 1911). The Second World War and the conflict in Vietnam brought us most of the drugs available today. The list is small, and the parasite has not been idle: Plasmodium falciparum has now developed resistance to all of our available drugs. The situation is particularly bad in South-East Asia.