tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post2651026689388310510..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Why less malaria can be more of a problemAnne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-90583755553091662422013-06-21T08:52:47.746-04:002013-06-21T08:52:47.746-04:00Thanks Anne!
I think an understanding of the popul...Thanks Anne!<br />I think an understanding of the population genetics, and a few other things, could actually lead to better malaria control in some settings. Probably especially in low transmission settings, where the danger of drug resistance emerging or persisting in a population might be greater. <br />One thing to consider, from the Read and colleagues paper above, is how we treat malaria. They discuss a more slow and steady type of treatment that doesn't provide such a strong selective pressure on the parasites. In my mind, that would be easier and more important to implement in a low transmission area. Currently the treatment scheme is to hit the parasite as hard as possible with a dose that should hopefully kill everything in the host. When treatment means life or death for the individuals, as it more commonly does in parts of Africa, I think it might be hard to move away from this approach. On the other hand, in places like Thailand, where people are mostly otherwise healthy, and where we think drug resistance keeps emerging, it might make sense to begin an alternate strategy that makes more sense evolutionarily. <br />Also, I wonder if chopping geographical zones up, using malaria check points, wouldn't lead to smaller effective population sizes and an increase in the importance of genetic drift... perhaps randomly losing some resistance genes. Of course, resistance genes might reach fixation in some small populations, but if we're smart about how we are using antimalarials, we have quite a few others that could be used in those specific populations. All just preliminary thoughts, but yes, I think that in some settings there is a lot of room for population genetics and evolutionary biology to inform malaria control strategies. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05068601494828074316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-3333409486960997362013-06-21T04:52:35.081-04:002013-06-21T04:52:35.081-04:00This is a thought-provoking post, Daniel. The popu...This is a thought-provoking post, Daniel. The population dynamics of drug resistance are one issue, and clearly need to be understood, but will that understanding lead to better malaria control?Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.com