Me Basic Problem In

Stacking Malaria

RESEARCH now in progress at Liverpool University promises to break the vicious circle vhich, up to the present has pre sented the complete eradication of nalaria.

Although the site of the malaria :an be suppressed, and patients leemingly cured of the complaint, he latter are always subject to re apses which can reinfect mosquito losts and so restart the process.

Malaria, too, has presented cer ain problems to which no answers lave as yet been obtained. Amongst hese is why it affects persons in lifferent ways to some, it may irove fatal; it may damage tissues n others; but on the other hand here are people who contract the omplaint and yet escape serious itermath.

These were some of the points nade when Dr. W. H. Andrews Lecturer in Tropical Medicine at he Liverpool University) addressed he British Association Conference ecently.

He pointed out that human arter -3s possess the power of constriction, nd may be constricted when ab .ormally influenced. Research in his sphere leads to the suggestion hat aftermaths from malaria may rise from the retarding of the lood stream, particularly in the ver.

The brilliant work of Professors hortt and Garnham at the London chool of Hygiene and Tropical ledicine in 1948 had revealed that he malarial parasite lodged in the ver. This discovery solved the roblem that had puzzled experts in ropical diseases for years, as to ow malaria caused relapses even r hen it was impossible for patients 3 have been reinfected.

Dr. Andrews explained that the iverpool research had been concen :ating on the possibility that the lalarial parasite in the liver, by fleeting the blood standard, causes in the tissues which in turn auses change in the blood cir- Lilation. The parasite itself, he ex lamed, uses oxygen and by reduc ig the oxygen-carrying capacity of ie blood can diminish the blood’s bility to feed the tissues, cause nailer cardiac output, effect altera on in pulmonary circulation and iduce many other reactions.

The liver receives a special blood

supply and can thus be a source of deterioration in any part of the body. If the means of destroying the parasite in the liver were dis covered, it would not only lead to a breaking of the malaria circle, but also prevent subsequent damage to other organs which is so often the aftermath of malaria.

This problem was reviewed by Mr, R. S. Bray. He explained that, fol lowing its introduction into the human body by the female mosquito, the parasite takes eight days to develop in the liver, and, after breaking into the blood stream, it can come back to that organ to reproduce itself. It is in a relatively inaccessible position and is able to resist drugs while in the liver. So

far, only one drug “prematuin” appears to be able to attack the invader in this stronghold. “Until this phase is easily assailable by a suitable drug’' summarised Mr.

Bray, “we shall not be able to pre vent malaria fully, instead of merely suppressing it as we do now”.