Chloroquine-resistant malaria arrives in Turkey

Almost all of the endemic and epidemic malaria in Turkey comes from the southeastern Anatolia region, thanks to the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants in the area. Until 2002, the cheap, off-patent drug chloroquine vanquished Turkey’s vivax malaria cases. According to a 2006 paper in the Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, chloroquine now fails in Turkey’s malaria cases about 20 percent of the time. Until resistance to the drug reaches 25 percent, however, the increasingly ineffective chloroquine will remain the country’s drug of choice for vivax malaria.

For more:

M.A. Kurcer et al, “The decreasing efficacy of chloroquine in the treatment of Plasmodium vivax malaria, in Sanliurfa, south-eastern Turkey,” Annals of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Vol. 100, No. 2 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16492358&ordinalpos=22&itool=
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