( A drugs programme which slashed malaria...)Chinese Scientists Take Malaria Fight to Africa,Health

A drugs programme which slashed malaria infections in parts of Cambodia is being extended to an African island,// with Chinese scientists aiming to simultaneously treat all 40,000 residents, an expert said.

Although malaria-infected mosquitoes pass the parasite from person to person, the scientists say the real source of the disease is people, some of whom can carry it in their bodies for a long time without showing clear symptoms.

Moheli island, the test location, is among the Comoros group of islands at the northern mouth of the Mozambique Channel, about two-thirds of the way between northern Madagascar and northern Mozambique.

While the average carrier rate in the 10 most seriously affected villages on Moheli is 50 percent, the rate is as high as 94.4 percent in some villages and as low as 6.5 percent in other areas. Malaria is the most common cause of death for children under the age of 5.

"This project is to eradicate the parasite in humans because the real source are the humans," said Li Guoqiang, a professor at the Tropical Medicine Institute at Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (GUTCM) in southern China.

"When it is driven out of humans, mosquitoes will not carry it since mosquitoes get it from humans. And once the parasite is not around, malaria will be exterminated."

Li disclosed the plan at an anti-malaria conference in Guangzhou and told Reuters later that GUTCM and the Comoros were expected to sign an agreement soon.

The project would probably kick off in the first half of 2007.

Under the plan, the islanders will be prescribed a single dose of arteminisin-based combination therapy (ACTs) and primaquine, which they will all consume at the same time to clear the parasite from their bodies.

The World Health Organisation recommends ACTs as the drug of choice against malaria. Artemisinin is a compound extracted from a herb, mostly gr
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