Researches have found out that the plasmodium parasite or malaria can survive the effects of medical treatments of medicines. Young parasites of malaria have the ability to resist these effects. The only hope for malarian victims is the artemisinin medicines and the University of Melbourne has proven that these young parasites are not sensitive to its effect.
Professor Leann Tillet and Dr. Nectarios Klonis from the Department and Molecular Biology and Bio21 Institute, published an article to the journal PNAS about the study that they conducted. Professor Tilley made a scientific about how the plamosdium reacts to the drug.
Plasmodiums takes about two days to complete their maturity, but the artemisinin only stays on the blood for about a few hours. The juvenile parasite is 100 times more resistant to the drug compared to those who have already matured. This will lead to risks of having more juvenile parasites able to survive clinical progress.
Plasmodiums actually inhabits blood cells to fulfill its cycle of life. it does it by digesting the cell particulary the red pigment, hemoglobin. The medicine ingested reacts with hemoglobin causing the pigment to activate its ART killing properties to destroy the parasite.
Dr. Klonis also found out from their study that the juvenile parasite at first has no digestive system and that connects to the reason of why they have such high sensitivity towards the drugs that affects it.
