Blog
The Geography of disease - Malaria’s resistance to drugs
24th January 2015
Despite many Scientific improvements and a reduction in Malaria deaths across the World, a new drug resistant strain of the Malaria parasite has been found and this is concerning.
A new strain of the Malaria parasite has been found in South East Asia which has developed resistance to the latest drug for the disease. The introduction of the drug called Artemisinin in the last few years has reduced the number of Malaria related deaths and Scientists are concerned about this new finding.
Worryingly, when Malaria has developed resistance in the past, it has always happened on the Thai-Cambodia border and then the strain spreads through Asia into Africa. Finding better treatments that could be more successful than Artemisinin are a long time away as many Scientists felt they had found the ultimate treatment. A spread of this resistant Malaria strain could jeopardise the fight in Africa against this terrible disease.
I have used this news article with my year 10 this week when we have been debating about how effective healthcare is in enabling a country to develop further. I allowed the class to come up with arguments against and for the success of healthcare improvements, and then I introduced the article which split the decision.