Promising New Drug May Cure Malaria

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Promising New Drug May Cure Malaria

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 31, 2012 @12:51AM from the take-that-mosquitoes dept.

Diggester writes "Researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa have developed a pill that can wipe out malaria with a single dose. It's a development that could save millions of lives in Africa alone, not to mention the rest of the world. But there's a teensy weensy little hurdle that must first be overcome: human testing. According to National Geographic, 'Clinical tests are scheduled for the end of 2013. If this tablet is approved in coming years, this achievement will surely usher in a new age for science in Africa. It will save millions upon millions of lives on the continent, helping avoid at least 24 percent of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.'"

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Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 00:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
I do think this is a positive development, but it's going to have to be followed up with some pretty intense education and condom dispersal in order to actually help things.
1. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by jolyonr · 2012-08-31 00:59 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  ... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  Maybe a bit overdramatic - but the truth is that overpopulation is every bit as much of a problem as climate change - if not more so.
  One could argue these two problems may eventually even each other out - but I wouldn't like to think of that as any kind of positive solution.
  
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2. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by jimicus · 2012-08-31 01:07 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  One of the biggest reasons for having lots of children is because so many die in infancy.
  Something similar was the case in the Western world as recently as the late 19th century - while it may be difficult to dig out reliable records, things like old family bibles are a great way to learn about children who only lived maybe a couple of years. If your family has anything like this, you might be surprised how many aunts and uncles you would have if they'd all survived.
3. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Ambassador+Kosh · 2012-08-31 01:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You could even say that they are coupled problems. If our population was not so large we would not have the kinds of climate change problems we are having.
  In many ways I think we (the west) are kind of like the greek gods in many myths. We often intend to help and do try to help but our attempts to help just make the situation worse because of unintended consequences.
  We notice that a country has starving people so we send them food. So then there are more people and their water table and other natural resources start to fail because of increased usage. We also notice more of them die from various diseases so we send cures for that which increases pressure even more.
  The basic problem I see is that you can't use western technology without also having things like western birthrates or you can have some pretty nasty consequences. I think that as we try to help africa all we are really doing right now is increasing how many people will eventually die when they exceed what we can do to try to and an unsustainable situation going.
  I am not saying we can never help people from other cultures but we have to be vastly more careful about it and realize that our technology does not exist in isolation and it is instead part of our culture and often our culture operates as a kind of control on the usage of technology. If you just hand that technology to another culture they may not have the controls for it and it can cause massive damage.
  
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4. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Western technology is what caused western birthrates.
  You have the whole thing backwards.
5. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by higuita · 2012-08-31 01:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Not all African countries have food problems... not all have wars... not all have democratic problems... and finally, malaria isnt restricted to Africa, it exits in south and central america and asia as you can see here. And of course, there are countries where malaria is a higher danger than others.
  Reducing the death rate usually increase the stability of the regions in middle term (people have more to lose) and in a long term, birth rate is also decreased. Europe and North America showed this and right now, Asia is already in that way.
  Either way, this will help all and if sucess, will plug a huge unsolved problem (mostly because first world countries have no malaria, so almost no research is committed to find a cure for it)
  
  --
  Higuita
6. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by silentcoder · 2012-08-31 01:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  >Right, but the actual human toll, the suffering it will cause because Africa is so poor, is that suddenly made alright since tourists have one less deadly disease to worry about?
  In a round-about way, it actually might be. Tourism is one of the largest single sources of foreign capital in most African countries. Indeed for quite a few it's their single largest export- and creates a market that has among the lowest barriers of entry for some of it (anybody can set up a curio stall with relatively little start-up capital and no need to afford expensive business locales).
  So more tourists would mean less starvation.
  
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  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
7. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Ambassador+Kosh · 2012-08-31 01:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Many parts of western technology caused western birthrates, not taking one or two pieces in isolation.
  It was our food system along with education, the industrial revolution, health care and many other factors that have led to lower birth rates. You can't just take only our food technology and give it to someone else and expect it to work out.
  
  --
  Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)
8. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by i+kan+reed · 2012-08-31 01:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Birth control is made widely available in Africa, and population growth there is slowing at what can only be called a reasonable rate(i.e. current population kinda high, first derivative also kinda high, second derivative healthy negative). Your perspective is a common one towards Africa, and, in general, a kind of racist, imperialistic one.
9. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Because malaria does not kill all its victims?
  Or this drug may not even cure malaria in humans.
  Are you this dense or just a big fan of Mengele?
10. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:36 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, which is why adding in this treatment gets them closer no farther away from low birth rates.
  They need more western technology not less.
  They need roads, schools, air conditioning, etc. Much like those places we are fighting in now, making sure those places had comfortable folks working 9-5 would solve a lot of problems for everyone.
11. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 01:39 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  No, more tourists and less malaria will result in a population exploding until it starts to get slowed down by starvation again.
  Seriously. What is needed is education and control facilities, and a complete reversal of the hilariously ridiculous idea that endless exponential growth is the ideal to strive for (that goes for the entire world, not just Africa).
12. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Perfection is the enemy of good. We can do this, we cannot reasonably do what you suggest.
  Birth control is already widely available in Africa, most African nations have some form of public education and many are working towards sustainability. Within 50 years they will have negative population growth.
  Your entire set of comments sounds like "White Man's Burden" to me. I suggest you study the continent and the problems it faces before suggesting the world treat them like savages.
13. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Forty+Two+Tenfold · 2012-08-31 01:57 · Score: 2
  
  Western way of life caused western birthrates.
  
  --
  Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
14. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by the+gnat · 2012-08-31 02:10 · Score: 2
  
  Birth control is made widely available in Africa, and population growth there is slowing at what can only be called a reasonable rate(i.e. current population kinda high, first derivative also kinda high, second derivative healthy negative). Your perspective is a common one towards Africa, and, in general, a kind of racist, imperialistic one.
  Every time I read comments like the GP, I wonder if the same people would also have objected to distributing the smallpox vaccine in Africa.
15. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by wbr1 · 2012-08-31 02:12 · Score: 2
  
  Western technology is what caused western birthrates.
  You have the whole thing backwards.
  Wrong punchy.
  Education lowers birthrates. Not western tech. You can feed, cure, and entertain to your hearts content, but it is teaching people, particularly girls and women, that causes them not to pop out 20 babies.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence
  http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13
  http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/07/from_the_cuttin_2.html
  
  --
  Silence is a state of mime.
16. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:32 · Score: 2
  
  haha, not unless there culture undergoes a massive shift it it's very core.
  Birth control is available, but there is s stigma. We are talking about places where anytime a something comes up to give women power over reproduction.
  And of course the Chinese are buying them up like crazy, so I expect they will soon be under paid miners and farmers.
  ". I suggest you study the continent and the problems it faces"
  right back at you.
  
  --
  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
17. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by dywolf · 2012-08-31 02:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "Here's a pill that can save your life Jonny...but first you have to promise to be good! Otherwise you can go die like all the rest."
  Seriously dude. WTF. Save the lives first. The rest comes naturally. The tighter you try to control it, the worse it will be. Just save the lives first. Then out of neccesity things start happening. So many of Africa's problems simply stem from lack of hope, lack of value of existence cause so many people simply expect to die by age 20. This is the first step to breaking that chain, and to place conditions upon it is unbelievably stupid, even evil.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
18. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:05 · Score: 2
  
  As long as the fundamentalist Protestant preachers and wacky Catholic missionaries from America and Europe get the fuck out of Africa and leave people alone with their stupid ideas about contraception being a sin and abstinence being the only way.
  Those guys should go to jail. Their stupid ideas have probably killed millions of people already. They like to preach in Africa because nobody listens to them in their home countries (well, maybe in the USA).
19. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by JustNiz · 2012-08-31 03:27 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  >> Take away one of the leading causes of childhood death, and they'll produce fewer children.
  Umm nope. They have large numbers of kids as their "pension plan" and for cultural reasons, such as religious, to attain more respect and power in the tribe (i.e. elders of larger families are more likely to become village elders), and to appear "prosperous". None of those will change just because malaria goes away.
20. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by PCM2 · 2012-08-31 03:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ... they'll all die of starvation anyway.
  People in this thread need to understand a few things about malaria. For starters, malaria isn't AIDS, so there's no reason to have the same prejudices about it. You don't get malaria because you're ignorant, or stupid, or religious, or poor, or you have bad morals, or you don't believe in medicine. You get it because one time, a mosquito landed on you and bit you. That's all it takes. It could happen when you're outside working in the fields or it could happen when you're indoors, in bed, asleep.
  Second, unlike AIDS, malaria doesn't go around killing everybody who gets it. In fact, a lot of people who get malaria get better. The problem is, while you're suffering from it, you are very ill. It's not, "Hey Bob, you were looking pretty rough during that PowerPoint presentation, is everything OK at home?" "Aw, well you know I got this malaria, it's really kicking my ass..." No, you are at home, in bed, covered with sweat, feeling miserable.
  Third, malaria is not chicken pox. When you get better from malaria, you don't now have immunity against malaria. There are also two forms of malaria. One form, you get better and you're fine. The other form, you only seem to be fine, but the malaria will actually come back, again and again. So people in high risk areas sometimes get sick with malaria for a two-digit percentage of their adult lives.
  So what we're talking about when we talk about curing malaria in Africa is improving the overall productivity of an entire region, not just increasing the population. Imagine what happens when you're a subsistence farmer who feeds your family by growing crops on your own land, but every 18 months you fall ill with malaria. Simple: You and your whole family starve.
  Now imagine your chances of completing a college education if you live in a malaria-stricken area. Or finishing the third grade. One Laptop Per Child won't help you if you can't get out of bed.
  People being healthy and productive isn't what causes widespread poverty and starvation. People being alive, yet unable to do even the most low-level agricultural work, let alone some kind of entrepreneurial work that can advance their community, is what causes it.
  And you know what else it causes? High birth rates. When whole communities have been reduced to poverty because of disease (among other factors), most families there will support themselves through pure physical labor. What do you need to do physical labor? Hands and strong backs. One hedge against your crops failing because you come down with malaria in harvest season is to have some children who can take over the work for you. Maybe the more the better, since children aren't adults. Also, children are more vulnerable to actually die of malaria, and it's always heartbreaking to be left childless, so more people might be disinclined to stop at one.
  Given all this, I can't imagine a single argument that would justify prolonging the suffering of Africa from malaria, in an age when we know exactly what causes it and we have the technology to prevent it. That's like saying the buildings keep burning down, but starting a fire department would be too expensive.
  Malaria was once highly prevalent in the southern United States. We mainly used civics projects to combat it -- draining swamps and the like -- and now it's all but eradicated here. Those same methods might be impractical in Africa -- medicine is probably necessary -- but the fact that no living American remembers a time when malaria was a commonplace disease in the U.S. proves that although malaria has been with mankind since the dawn of recorded history, it doesn't need to be. Like smallpox, it may be possible to eradicate it completely. Anybody who thinks that's a bad thing needs to have their head examined.
  
  --
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21. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by eriks · 2012-08-31 05:46 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Your take is a generalization, and overly simplistic, though so is the idea that simply reducing the death rate will curb population growth. The facts are totally uncontroversial. Girls education:
  http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/womens-empowerment/girls-education/
  is the main way that the birth rate declines, that and access to family planning, for those women once they understand what the options are.
  We're going to be 10 billion humans by 2050, and most of the population models predict a stable population after that. Provided we can hold it all together that long... Our systems for production, government and education will need to change quite a bit to work in a world with a steady-state population. (read: a steady-state economy)
  Here's a fantastic explanation of the current models on population:
  http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html
22. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by Byrel · 2012-08-31 05:48 · Score: 2
  
  Every single major problem in Africa took root from colonialism IMO.
  Right. So you blame the prevalence of malarial mosquitoes on colonialism? Or perhaps the large tracts of non-arable land tied up in jungles and desert? Maybe all the barriers to transportation in the interior were due to a largely coastal colonial occupation?
  Even moderating the claim from "every single" to "most" problems, still leaves a lot of factors out of the equation. Very few previously colonized countries have as many problem as sub-Saharan Africa. Take India. I doubt anyone would call the British occupation benign, but India has not suffered from it in the long-term. Instead it opened up knowledge and trade routes, drastically improving the lot of the average Indian. Australia was a prison colony for crying out loud. I don't think the Brits had much interest in improving the lot of Australians, but their colonization eventually had that effect. Take a look at the Ottoman occupation of , say Cyprus. Or Morocco. The Spanish colonization of Mexico.
  The general rule for colonization with a massive tech imbalance is: inequality, misery, discrimination, and increased prosperity. I'm not justifying colonization, or any particular colonial practices. But it is counter productive to claim that it's the cause of all problems a colonized nation faces. It isn't; no single factor is the cause of all problems ANY country faces. In the end, any external perterbation will stop, the transient, post-colonial upheavals will die out, and the intransient response will be primarily due to how that people, and that culture chose to respond.
23. Re:Unless you can give everyone birth control.... by pnutjam · 2012-08-31 07:23 · Score: 2
  
  I don't think British colonialism improved things for Australians. But if you don't believe me, ask the 2.2% of the population that is indigenous how they feel about the 97.8% that have taken over their country.
  
  Killing off is not improving...
  
  --
  Cheap storage VM.
Not so fast by Chrisq · 2012-08-31 01:01 · Score: 3, Funny

I here apple has a patent on round edible things.
What does it cost? by tverbeek · 2012-08-31 01:09 · Score: 2

There's one other "teensy weensy little hurdle": the cost. Or more precisely: the price. If this is something that WHO or other health agencies can purchase and dispense for a few cents per dose, it could revolutionize life in sub-Saharan Africa. If it's patent-protected and expensive... not so much.

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Re:Whack-a-mole by CrankyFool · 2012-08-31 01:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

The slashdot audience is sometimes incredibly cynical. "Oh, sure, cure Malaria, but I'll bet you all those people will just die of something else!"
Yes, true. If there's one thing we can probably all agree on is that in the long run, no one will be saved. Everyone will die. That's what happens to people.
The answer is either to give up and do nothing about it, or start doing something about it, knowing that even solving a part of the problem (Malaria) isn't solving the whole problem. Do you want to move the ball forward or sit back and snipe at those who do?
Personally -- speaking as someone who saw his father almost die of Malaria in the early 80's after returning from a trip to Kenya -- I can't see this as anything but a good thing.
Re:So, millions will die without the drug by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

What if it kills 90% of the people who take it?
Human trials find that drugs either work as expected, not at expected or there are serious complications from the drug that might even be worse than what it cures.
Kill the profit motive by smooth+wombat · 2012-08-31 01:18 · Score: 2

As certain folks on here will tell you, this is just a money grab by evil pharmaceutical companies. These poor souls in Africa will be forced to take these tablets simply so the evil companies can make a profit.
This could have been done a long time ago, and without companies making a profit, but it's been put off because of the conspiracy between government and evil corporations to keep the man down by making him pay for medications which can wipe out a disease/affliction/whatever.
As this is purely a profit-driven exercise, it must be shouted down and demonstrations made to prevent this tablet from being used.
Oh, and since this involves use of evolutionary doctrine, we need to get the Christian community in an uproar because this goes against the Almighty's will. If he didn't want malaria to exist, he wouldn't have created it to torment humans. Trying to find a way to prevent/cure malaria is an assault on religion and must be stopped.
Did I cover everything?

--
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1. Re:Kill the profit motive by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:25 · Score: 2
  
  No problem. It's a medicine, not a vaccine. We don't want all those poor Africans suffering from autism, do we?
Re:Whack-a-mole by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

These are the same morons who try to hinder nearly all human progress, they fail to realize "Perfect is the enemy of good".
In their other forms they claim electric cars will never get better, wind power kills birds, solar power takes land and that fracking can never be done. They never consider that perfection will never be reached, but each step towards a better answer is a worthwhile step.
Too early to rejoice by Wdi · 2012-08-31 01:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Note that there has been *zero* human testing yet, not even phase 1 tests on healthy human subjects. From among the compounds that make it to that stage, maybe one in 50 or 100 (!) really makes it to market.
Aminopyridines (the class this new compound is from) have known pharmaceutical uses - and some compounds of this class have severe side effects, such as causing epileptic seizures that are difficult to reproduce in animals. .And its pretty reactive amino group is a general red flag.
But of course I wish the researchers luck with their tests.
1. Re:Too early to rejoice by nbauman · 2012-08-31 03:42 · Score: 2
  
  Humans are just big mice, right?
  These guys deserve kudos for drug discovery, but as you say it's a long way from animals to humans. They don't even know whether it's safe in humans. Another big question is, how fast will the parasites develop resistance?
  They would be doing pretty well if it turns into another artemisinin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisinin and if it does, they deserve a Lasker too. But even artemisin can't be used as monotherapy, because it can develop resistance.
Re:Oh good by u38cg · 2012-08-31 01:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

Let's just leave them to die of unpleasant diseases. Oh good. What a super human being you are. Did it ever occur to you that there are links between these things? Like, you know, that healthier people are richer and thus have less children? Not that that's really the point. Also, that climate is where your ancestors evolved, so your first world superiority is perhaps a little misplaced. Just being realistic here.

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[FUCK BETA]
Re:ZOMBIES!!!!! by ciderbrew · 2012-08-31 01:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

When they "cure" 95% of the Malaria. It does leave room for the drug resistant strain to thrive. Not that it is a problem as the 95% is killing the poor people regardless. I hope BIll get to spend his Billions buying up the world supply and giving out if it works. Good legacy to go out with.
Re:Tonic water? by h4rr4r · 2012-08-31 01:38 · Score: 3, Funny

No, you got modded down for suggesting such a terrible Gin.
ague by SgtChaireBourne · 2012-08-31 02:02 · Score: 2

Actually it used to be quite common in parts of the US as well. It used to be called ague. I'm not sure of it's original range, but I think it was even as far north as Ohio. There are variants like avian malaria which have been a barrier to reintroducing eagles and other species.

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Re:Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by u38cg · 2012-08-31 02:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

The drug testing regime we have was built incrementally to deal with flaws that existed in the previous setup. Remember Thalidomide?

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[FUCK BETA]
Re:So, millions will die without the drug by plover · 2012-08-31 02:34 · Score: 2

I remember reading about clinical trials for some lifesaving drug a while ago. As they were going through the trials, they realized that the drug group was experiencing a very high survival rate, something like 90%+ cured, while the control group continued to experience mortality at the expected rates. They suspended the trials early, and provided the control group with the actual drug, citing humanitarian reasons.
It's possible that they could do the same for this drug. More likely, really, as South Africa probably doesn't have the same requirements as the US FDA for approving new drugs.

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John
Re:Nah, I must be wrong. For if I'm right.. by Hatta · 2012-08-31 02:38 · Score: 2

How many lives will be lost due to distrust of western medical science if they push forward prematurely and find serious side effects?

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Re:A great step forward by geekoid · 2012-08-31 02:55 · Score: 2

"Yes they are (family planning)."
HAHAHAHA.. mostly.. no.
" to be false again and again in reality. "
nope. There are places whose population continue to grow as there infant mortality rate decrease..sub Saharan area come ti mind.
The BIGGEST reason western country birth rate drops is a culture where women have a say in reproduction. That is not the case in a lot of sub Saharan
TO not take in the cultures, woman's rights, distractions into account so, quite frankly, stupid.

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Al Gore will not be happy by Quila · 2012-08-31 02:56 · Score: 2

He wants population control, and here we are working to eliminate a major natural population control mechanism.
Millions of dead kids = good for the environment.
Re:Whack-a-mole by daem0n1x · 2012-08-31 03:21 · Score: 2

You are right. We shouldn't have invented antibiotics. Now we have all these people in the developed countries dying from old age. What a fucking tragedy.
Productivity boom by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 03:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

Beyond the savings in human lives, there should be a productivity boom. Malaria is contracted periodically in adulthood by people in an environment where it is prevalent, and it can wipe out an individual's productivity for a couple weeks at a time, several times a year. In some areas, it can be contracted with the same frequency with which westerners are used to the common cold. So, you're looking at perhaps a 10% increase in productivity just from keeping adults at work instead of in their sickbed or tending sick children.