Malaria drugs fail for first time on patients in UK

A key malaria treatment has failed for the first time in patients being treated in the UK.

The drug combination was unable to cure four patients, who had visited Africa.

A team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says it is too early to panic.
 
But it however warns things could suddenly get worse and demanded an urgent appraisal of drug-resistance levels in Africa. 

Malaria parasites are spread by bites from infected mosquitoes and it is a major killer of under-fives with one child dying from the disease every two minutes.

Between 1,500 and two thousand people are treated for malaria in the UK each year and are mostly treated with the combination drug artemether-lumefantrine. 

SOURCE: BBC NEWS