The anti-parasitic drug, Ivermectin, has been discovered to have the potential to help the fight against Malaria.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene were presented two studies that pointed out that there are signs that Ivermectin can either kill malaria-transmitting mosquitoes when they feed on the blood of humans who have taken the drug, or prevent the mosquitoes from transmitting the malaria parasite to humans, by interfering with their digestive systems.
According to Science Magazine, the first study had recorded a 16 percent reduction in the percentage of malaria cases among children under five years old in villages in Burkino Faso, where multiple doses of Ivermectin were administered, compared to the children where only one dose of the drug was administered. The trial of the study is still on-going and will end in November.
The other study was conducted in parts of South East Asia where mass administration of the drug isn't normally conducted. The researchers of the study fed human blood mixed with Ivermectin in a lab to the most common form of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. Kevin Kobylinski, a scientist with the U.S. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and its U.S. component at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Thailand, said that their team found out that the drug can either kill the mosquitoes or prevent it from acquiring the parasite. The second study is going to be published early next year.
The two studies are still not finished but the results being gathered are promising. However, Willem Takken, a medical entomologist at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands, is having a hard time to be enthusiastic about the idea of facing the mosquitoes with a chemical approach. Mosquitoes have developed resistance against almost any chemical that humans have thrown at them, and Takken believes that it is also bound to happen to Ivermectin.
