Treating malaria a single dose

UK researchers have found a new compound that can be used to treat malaria, which is killing nearly half a million people worldwide every year, with a single dose.

Find a cure for malaria in a single dose

The discovery was made when pharmacists from Dundee University (UK) attempted to identify new potential treatments for malaria, a parasitic disease, killing nearly half a million. People around the world every year.

Anopheles mosquitoes are the intermediate for transmitting malaria parasites to humans.(Photo: Getty Images)

Initially, the team experimented with nearly 4,700 compounds to see if any of these compounds could kill the malaria parasite . A compound called DDD498 has been found to work in a completely different way than all antimalarial drugs currently on the market or in clinical development.

According to experts, DDD498 seems to promote therapeutic efficacy at various stages in the life cycle of malaria parasites.

Professor Ian Gilbert, head of the study, said: "We have discovered an exciting new compound. DDD107498 has the potential to treat malaria with a single dose, preventing the spread of the sign. However, there are still some things to be done before this compound can reach the patients, but we are extremely excited by the progress achieved ".

World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, there are 200 million cases of malaria in 2013 and 584,000 of these cases died of the disease. Most of these deaths are children under 5 years of age and pregnant women.

In the face of the fact that malaria continues to threaten millions of people around the globe, the British team has teamed up with a pharmaceutical company to develop DDD107498 and is giving the drug a thorough safety check than. The patent team hopes, the new drug could be allowed to be tested on humans next year.