malaria transmission is enhanced by antibiotics

Some over the counter drugs sold on a large scale in Africa, show strong antagonism with several antimalarial drugs. Aspirin has an effect on the endothelium and platelet adherence. The time to parasite clearance is significantly longer in children treated with paracetamol and recrudescence is higher. This of course does not prevent the swamping of Africa with these commodities by Bigpharma. You don’t kill a cash cow even if the collateral damage is the death of thousands of children! And now it is also confirmed that antibiotics are helping mosquitos to spread malaria more effectively. A study led by the Imperial College London, looked at a combination of the antibiotics penicillin and streptomycin Mathilde Gendrin, Faye H. Rodgers, Rakiswendé S. Yerbanga, Jean Bosco Ouédraogo, María-Gloria Basáñez, Anna Cohuet & George K. Christophides Antibiotics in ingested human blood affect the mosquito microbiota and capacity to transmit malaria. Nature Communications, January 2015 They found that the presence of antibiotics in the blood of malaria-infected people is a risk of increasing disease transmission. The antibiotics in the ingested blood enhance the susceptibility of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes to malaria infection by disturbing their gut microbiota. It also caused the mosquitoes to live longer, which increased their chances of surviving long enough to pass on the parasite to another person. This information is not new. Most antibiotics cause a delayed death phenotype. Pradel G, Schlitzer M. Antibiotics in malaria therapy and their effect on the parasite apicoplast. Curr Mol Med. 2010 Apr;10(3):335-49. In 1952 already it was found that antibiotics against malaria have been relatively ineffective. Coatney GR, Greenberg J. The use of antibiotics in the treatment of malaria. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1952 Dec 30;55(6):1075-81. Among 31 antibiotics tested against the malaria of lower animals 22 were completely inactive against blood induced infections, including penicillin and streptomycin. It would be important to check what effect the antibiotic doxycycline recommended by WHO, has on transmission. Doxycycline impairs Plasmodium asexual development; however increases gametocyte numbers and their clearance time, in a way similar to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine. Sasithon Pukrittayakamee, Mallika Imwong, Pratap Singhasivanon, Kasia Stepniewska, Nicholas J. Day and Nicholas J. White. Effects of Different Antimalarial Drugs on Gametocyte Carriage in P. vivax Malaria. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2008, 79, 378-384 Antibiotic exposure also increases mosquito fecundity, a 32 % higher proportion of egg-laying females (M Gendrin op.cit.). This increased fecundity is likely to augment moquito populations. Recent surveys in Subsaharan African countries estimate antibiotic prescription for feverish children attending health centres at 43-71% and for feverish adults at 36%. tuberculosis and leprosy patients are prescribed long courses of antibiotics (WHO Model Prescribing Information,1995 and 1998). Who is going to stop these drug related death sentences tolerated by WHO? Artemisia annua is an alternative to this chemical swamp. The plant not only cures malaria and reduces fever as the Nobel price confirmed, it is a strong prophylactic against malaria it has strong anti-inflammatory properties by lowering IL-6 and IL-8 as found at the University of Louvain, it is active against immunodeficiency by raising CD4 as found in Katanga, Uganda and India. C Kansango Tchandema, P Lutgen. In vivo trials on the therapeutic effects of encapsulated Artemisia anua and Artemisia afra. GJRA- Global Journal for Research Analysis, 2016 vol5 Iss6 ISSN 2277-8160