Thailand struggles with chronic resistant malaria
Thailand has a special spot on the global malaria map: It has always been the first territory to develop drug resistant new types of the disease. Resistance to the anti-malarial drug chloroquine first emerged in Trat’s Bo Rai district and Chanthaburi’s Pong Nam Ron and Soi Dao districts many years ago. Researchers from the Paris-affiliated Institut Pasteur in Cambodia have found evidence that resistance to artemisinin in five countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion is also related to genetics. But once resistance starts, it can spread to other areas too, as seen in its expansion to India.
