A 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) report says over 200 million people worldwide were affected by malaria in 2017, many of which were women and children.
These statistics and some misconceptions leave many travellers concerned about the risks of staying in a malaria-prone area.
According to Robyn Daneel-Spicer, director at Sure Stellenbosch Travel, “the biggest concern [people raise when booking holidays through us] is actually visiting areas which are malaria prone and contracting the disease.”
Daneel-Spicer says travellers are uneasy about precautionary measures, especially related to medication they need to take. “It may make them drowsy or nauseous, and generally not feel very well, so people are quite scared when travelling to malaria [prone] areas because of the effects of the medication more so than the actual risk of contracting malaria,” she adds.
She advises travellers to take the precautionary measures needed when planning travel, ensuring they have travel insurance (that covers malaria).
Talking about some of the misconceptions travellers have, Daneel-Spicer says people believe antimalarial drugs are 100% effective: “The truth is that most medications are preventative, but can not guarantee 100% effectiveness which means you will need to be vigilant after returning from a malaria prone area, there is also no vaccine that can prevent malaria.”
There are a number of scientists on the African continent researching ways to fight the disease using innovative research techniques, especially with the rise of drug resistance.
A one of a kind research centre
Dr Claire Le Manach, a principal scientific officer at the University of Cape Town’s Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D) says the centre has developed two compounds that have been approved for clinical and preclinical studies in collaboration with Swiss NGO Medicines for Malaria Venture.
“MMV048 was the first drug developed on African soil to reach phase one human trials in 2015 and UCT943 was approved as a preclinical candidate in 2016,” she adds.
LISTEN: Dr Claire Le Manach speaks to Sethu Mbuli about the work of H3D
H3D has developed these drugs to act differently to what is currently available on the market, and to be active against resistant malaria parasites that have emerged in the recent years.
While most drugs available on the market target the blood stage of falciparum and vivax parasites (the deadliest forms of malaria), Le Manach says H3D is aiming to develop drugs that target different stages of the parasites to treat the disease and to block malaria transmission at the same time.
“Resistance to frontline therapy (first treatment given for a disease) has emerged in the past few years and there is an urgent need to find new drugs that have differentiated method of action (a different way of acting),” She adds.
Some of H3D’s malaria medicinal chemists. From left to right: Dr Andre Horatscheck, Dr Richard Gessner, Dr Aloysius Nchinda, Dr Jean Dam and Dr Claire Le Manach. PHOTO: Duncan Robertson
Biochemistry as a tool to understand malaria
SU biochemist and lecturer Dr Marianne de Villiers PHOTO: Duncan Robertson
Dr Marianne de Villiers, a leading researcher at the Stellenbosch University’s (SU) Biochemistry Department, says her work focuses on using chemical techniques in biochemical systems.
De Villiers says her laboratory is currently investigating metabolic pathways that are important for the survival of P. falciparum parasite (a parasite that causes malaria in humans).
“One of the metabolic pathways that we focus on is the biosynthesis of Coenzyme A (CoA). This molecule is essential for all organisms, including humans, and the metabolic pathway that produces this molecule is being explored in our laboratory as an antimalarial drug target,” says de Villiers.
On the impact of their work on eradicating malaria, de Villiers says her laboratory and other collaborators have found that molecules that mimic the chemical structure of Vitamin B5 (an essential nutrient needed by people and animals) can be used to kill malaria parasites in the laboratory.
De Villiers says: “In fact, these molecules kill the malaria parasites with the same potency [as] chloroquine. Chloroquine is a known antimalarial drug that is widely used to treat and prevent malaria.”
She shares in Le Manach’s sentiments about drug resistance, saying chloroquine is not effective in all malaria affected areas due to this problem.
“We are currently focusing on working out how the Vitamin B5-imitating molecules work and where specifically in the CoA biosynthesis pathway it interferes with the parasites’ biology,” she adds.
De Villiers says this is important information to have, as researchers need to know how the drug works in order to improve it and to prevent the development of resistance.