|
 Why We Do
Though
global malaria mortality is decreasing, the Containment Project must proceed
to save the lives of those who would be at risk if artemisinin
tolerance on the Thai-Cambodian border were allowed to spread.
The
challenges for the project include:
· Large-scale deforestation exacerbated
by investors building hydro-electricity power systems in Western
Cambodia, possibly bringing new vectors and changing vector behaviour of existing ones
· Decreasing selection pressure on artemisinin, for example by using non-artemisinin
combinations in restricted conditions and avoiding the use of artemisinin monotherapies,
cannot be fully effective on patients carrying parasites that have already
mutated into genes tolerant to it while leaving resistant mutants to survive
and reproduce.
· Mono-therapies remain available in Cambodia
where many people still opt for self treatment, buying any kind of medicines
in the yet unregulated private sector, where single drug treatments are seen
to have fewer side effects than their combined counterparts, and where they
cost less.
· Migrants remain difficult to define
or quantify. Cambodians migrate internally and cross the border into Thailand for
seasonal work. Thai authorities have set up two categories of migrants based
on the time they stay, while offering treatment, and enabling the children of
unregistered health-care providers to be trained in pharmacy at government
colleges.
|
A Mon rumigrant
worker at work tapping rubber in Trat, Thailand WHO/Nuttakarn
Sumon
|
|
