• Question: How close are you to curing malaria?

    Asked by mazza to Julian on 15 Mar 2011. This question was also asked by victorsimthegreatscientist.
    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi mazza.

      There are already “cures” out there – drugs that you can take that kill the parasite that cause malaria. The problems are really three: 1) The parasites rapidly develop resistance to the drugs, so we keep needing new ones. 2) The people who really need the drugs often don’t have access to them and can’t afford them. 3) Drugs are all very well, but you need to take them every time you get infected. Even better would be a vaccine, that would protect you for longer periods of time.

      How close are we to a vaccine? People have been working on this for 40 years, and there isn’t one yet. We are trying hard though, and I like to hope that we will have malaria more under control in 10 years time, and maybe even eradicated within another 20. It’s a big challenge, because of the scale of the problem, and the health infrastructure of many of the countries affected, but it is a fight worth fighting.

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