Malaria is a life-threatening blood disease caused by mosquitos.
People who get malaria are typically very sick with high fevers, shaking chills, and flu-like illness. If the disease it is not treated with drugs the symptoms can become fatal.

Scientists have recently discovered that the treatment used to treat UK patients with malaria have failed for the first time. Although malaria is not found in the UK, about 2000 cases are diagnosed every year due to infected travellers returning from countries where the disease is common. The reason behind this information is because the treatment was unable to treat four patients who had all visited Africa. They were all given a combination of two drugs which initially worked, but after a month they were all readmitted when the tropical disease returned. Fortunately, they were all treated using another anti-malarial medication.

A medical team from the London school of Hygiene and tropical medicine have said not to panic, as it is too early to say for sure if they have found a dangerous level of resistance. For the time being scientists are investigating the matter further. Dr Colin Sutherland told BBC news “It does feel like something is changing, but we’re not yet in a crisis. It is an early sign and we need to take it quite seriously as it may be snowballing into something with greater impact,”

According to the World Health Organisation nearly half of the worlds population is at risk of malaria, which why doctors looking carefully into the effiencey of drugs.

Bhavya Bhaskaran, Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa College