Alert in the scientific community for the adaptability of the malaria parasite

Eduardo Najar
News from the Latin Agency for Medicine and Public Health

Some of the changes that the malaria parasite presents are due to climatic factors that can promote new characteristics and infections

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease of the Anopheles type, each year about 210 million people are infected with this disease and 440,000 die from this. The population that tends to be most at the center of malaria is the pediatric one and predominates on the African continent.

There are many organisms that adapt to the environment and provide new tools to perform their various functions, insects are individuals who can easily modify characteristics or qualities to evade those sanitary tools such as insecticides that fight these parasites, in order to avoid comorbidities. . associated with some type of pathogen transmitted by mosquitoes.

The parasite that causes malaria has received structural changes that elude those tools of protection and elimination, experts assure that a new targeted drug and chemical compounds could have better efficacy against this agent.

New resources

There are many theories of various experts in which they state that it is necessary to have new compounds and both medical and scientific advances to treat those changes that malaria can present, for this, it is necessary that the respective studies be carried out to innovate both in treatments and diagnosis as in instruments that eradicate the plague from a certain place.

The La Caixa Foundation has started a project in which it is necessary to know the molecular changes of this parasite, as an initiative in this month of October, the volunteers in the country of Mali will begin to do blood tests of those minors between 9 and 12 years of age. age, as these children are the most vulnerable with regards to symptoms and disease progression.

‘What we will do next is infect the mosquitoes and isolate their cells in different stages to identify the differences,’ said Elena Gómez Díaz, a researcher at the López Neyra Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine (IPBLN-CSIC) and leader of the project.

Infectology

Thanks to the adaptive power of the mosquito, it is necessary to take into account those factors that can influence this purpose, such as the weather and those chemical tools that are used to prevent them from remaining in a territory, the change and combination of this type of tools can be a workable solution to make this adaptation process as unfavorable as possible.

“Even if they put mosquito nets in homes, they will know how to adapt and will begin to infect outside wherever the human being is,” explained Marta Moreno Leirana, researcher in the Department of Infection Biology at the London School of Tropical Medicine. and Hygiene

It is important to take into account those that can present some agents within diseases, malaria is a critical condition that affects a large part of the world population, progress and research are the main weapon to combat the mosquito that transmits the parasite and avoid its constant mutation, so that treatments and therapies can be more effective.