Disease

Malaria ‘superbug’ spreads to Vietnam

A highly drug resistant malaria “superbug” from western Cambodia is now present in southern Vietnam, leading to alarming failure rates for dihydroartemisinin (DHA)-piperaquine — Vietnam’s national first-line malaria treatment, leading malaria scientists warn.

A single mutant strain of very drug resistant malaria has now spread from western Cambodia to north-eastern Thailand, southern Laos and into southern Vietnam and caused a large increase in treatment failure of patients with malaria. The spread of this dominant artemisinin drug resistant P falciparum C580Y mutant malaria parasite lineage across the entire Mekong Sub-region is a serious threat to malaria control and eradication efforts.