Malaria; The next pandemic?

Sherri Siegele

Scientific teams from the UK and U.S. show that people in Cambodia are becoming drug resistant to malaria drugs. In 2006 the World Health Organization warned that this might happen and requested that the most effective drug, artemesinin, be limited in its distribution to prevent resistance build up. Malaria kills a million people every year. Twice in the past older malaria drugs became drug resistance in South East Asia resulting in drug resistance parasites being spread to Africa. This resulted in wide-spread deaths. Half the world’s population is at risk if the situation is not controlled. While malaria will spread to the western world it is developing states that will suffer the most casualties, especially Africa where malaria is already a huge problem. This may sound stupid but I’m wondering why over time human’s haven’t built up a natural resistance to malaria.