Abimbola Akosile With Agency Report
15 July 2008
Lagos — Australian scientists yesterday identified a potential treatment to combat malaria, a global scourge, which kills about 300,000 Nigerians, mostly children below five years, annually.
According to a report on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website, researchers in Melbourne believe their discovery could be a major breakthrough in the fight against the disease; where the malaria parasite produces a glue-like substance which makes the cells it infects sticky, so they cannot be flushed through the body.
The researchers, according to the report, have shown how removing a protein responsible for the glue can destroy its stickiness, and undermine the parasite's defence.
The malaria parasite, named Plasmodium falciparum, effectively hijacks the red blood cells it invades, changing their shape and physical properties dramatically.
Among the changes it triggers is the production of the glue-like substance, which enables the infected cells to stick to the walls of the blood vessels. This stops them being passed through the spleen, where the parasites would usually be destroyed by the immune system.
The Australian team developed mutant strains of P. falciparum, each lacking one of 83 genes known or predicted to play a role in the red cell remodeling process. Systematically testing each one, they were able to show that eight proteins were involved in the production of the key glue-like substance.
Removing just one of these proteins stopped the infected cells from attaching themselves to the walls of blood vessels, the report revealed.
Professor Alan Cowman, a member of the research team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, said targeting the protein with drugs, or possibly a vaccine, could be key to fighting malaria.
"If we block the stickiness, we essentially block the virulence or the capacity of the parasite to cause disease," he said.
Malaria is preventable and curable, but can be fatal if not treated promptly. The disease kills more than a million people each year. Many of the victims are young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Available statistics indicate that one out of every five Nigerian children will die before their fifth birthday, with malaria alone being responsible for one quarter of these deaths.
Malaria is said to be responsible for an estimated 30 per cent of deaths among children, 11 per cent among pregnant women and 80 per cent of diseases in reported cases in health facilities.
It is certainly the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the country.
Records also show that 50 per cent of Nigeria's population suffers from, at least, one episode of malaria attack each year. The disease accounts for over 45 per cent of all outpatient visits.
The Federal Government spends millions annually on awareness campaigns and provides malaria control measures, which involves programmes such as the Roll Back Malaria initiative, where special insecticide-treated bed-nets are produced and distributed to the people, especially nursing mothers.
Various countries and international organisations such as Japan and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are also collaborating with the country in the fight against her 'biggest' killer.
In the country, malaria is directly or remotely responsible for the loss of millions of productive hours, resulting in colossal reduction in individual and collective productivity.
The Kano State Commissioner for Health, Malama Aisha Ishiaku, recently stated that the malaria scourge accounts for an annual economic burden of about N132 billion in Nigeria.
Reports also revealed that in Africa, malaria accounts for 10 per cent of the continent's disease burden as well as the $12 billion yearly lost in productivity.
Globally, about 40 per cent of world population (2.4 billion) is known to be at risk. An estimated 300-500 million cases of malaria occur globally every year.
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