10 ms·

Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

329 points by elorant 7y ago

arkades 7y ago
This article can’t seem to decide whether it’s discussing ivermectin - an old antiparasitic derived from the avermectin produced by streptomyces - or bacteria. It vacillates between “ivermectin effective” and “bacteria killed parasite,” which are in no way equivalent. The latter suggests something like “strep killed plasmodium, so maybe we can find the compound used and use it for malaria.” The latter suggests, well, ivermectin is the compound. God, science journalism from scientifically illiterate rehashes of press releases is always such garbage. The actual trial they are discussing doesn’t address using bacteria at all. It is directly the question of “if we repeatedly give ivermectin (the drug) to a population, can we reduce malaria transmission?” ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32321-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ) studied in 8 villages for 18 weeks during peak malaria season. With approx 75% participation, malaria incidence dropped around 20%. Please let’s change the link to the Lancet article.
- andrewshadura 7y ago
  Yeah, the summary (blood deadly to mosquitoes) seems completely unrelated to the rest of the article. I'm disappointed by the quality of this article.
- nneonneo 7y ago
  It almost sounds as if the journalist believes Ivermectin _is_ a bacteria and a drug derived from it is killing malaria. Agreed that this smacks of sloppy science journalism.
  - giarc 7y ago
    I think you are right. Here is a quote from the author, who is obviously talking about a bacterium killing plasmodium, of which ivermectin is not. “We have discovered [that the] bacterium is highly effective in killing plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, but our research is more focused on pregnant women and children as they are more vulnerable. We are getting very motivating leads,” Kariuki said. Perhaps the issue is that Kariuki is not a listed author on the Lancet paper, so perhaps he's just providing comment generally and not specifically?
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin Ivermeticin is commonly used in Veterinary medicine for cattle, horses, sheep, goats, dogs, etc. It is once in a while used to treat worms in people but is more common to use Pyrantel to treat human roundworm infections which are surprisingly common in developed countries. Thus it is a common drug and will not be crazy expensive. It seems expensive to me when I have to buy it for an animal bigger than me at first world prices, but it is cheap in developing countries.
- newsreview1 7y ago
  This science journalism isn't all that bad, actually. The article is clearly about Ivermectin, and never mentions "bacteria killed parasite" - Additionally, Ivermectin and other avermectins are macrocyclic lactones and are derived from the bacterium Streptomyces avermitilis. So even if teh article mentions bacteria... it's still not wrong.
  - minitech 7y ago
    It’s the way the article mentions bacteria that’s wrong. The wording and capitalization really do imply that ivermectin is a species of bacteria.
- projektfu 7y ago
  A lot of the strangeness seems to be in quotes from Dr. Karikuri. Did the author of the article misquote him or are his statements that confused?
Crazyontap 7y ago
I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering). I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc). Anyone know what happened to it? If that were to come to fruition than a lot of disease in addition to malaria like chikungunya, dengue, etc will be cured too.
- ChefboyOG 7y ago
  This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week. The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The debate is around whether or not this will upset balance in ecosystems (many feel it will not). This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. Then there are others who are in general opposed to this sort of interference in an animal population on ethical grounds. Related article: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lab-tests-gene-drive-wiped-out-population-mosquitoes https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lab-tests-gene-drive-wip...
  - mullingitover 7y ago
    > This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. This is so infuriating. Many people will die during this extended hemming and hawing. Humans have driven countless important species to extinction with no thought, but we have to vacillate over a species that is responsible for more deaths than all the wars in human history combined? My only reservation about driving the mosquitoes to extinction with a gene drive is that we can't guarantee that the mosquitoes will suffer.
gus_massa 7y ago
From the press article: > Child malaria episodes could be reduced by up to 20% if populations living in high-risk areas are given Ivermectin, [....] > An expert, independent from the study, said reports of resistance to the current class of malaria drugs are on the rise. [...] “There are cases of the drugs being sold over the counter, leading to their resistance and overuse. [...]” If the plan is to give everyone the new drug, why don't they expect to get resistant strains soon?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jessaustin 7y ago
  We give it to our horses every year, and it still kills intestinal worms. Some genetic changes are just so large that they are extremely unlikely.
  - projektfu 7y ago
    There is quite a lot of acquired resistance to ivermectin in horse strongyles. Just not in S. vulgaris that was causing infarction. Now, the recommendations for horses are changing to a quantitatively driven approach based on fecal egg count rather than routine annual deworming. Pasture rotation is also useful. In sheep, the barber-pole worm Haemonchus has become resistant to most approved parasiticides. Resistance is a definite problem.
webwielder2 7y ago
>science journalism I think this is the case for pretty much every area of journalism. If you are a subject matter expert, you quickly realize that 90% of coverage of that subject is dreadful.
- chongli 7y ago
  Yes, the Gell-Mann amnesia effect [1] needs to be made more widely known. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    Yeah, but we've heard ad-nauseam about the Gell-Mann effect. I wish there were an equally clever idiom I could trot out when people criticise professions they probably know noting about. Journalism is an incredibly difficult field to work in, and journalism as a profession is just barely still a thing due to loss of advertising revenue to online platforms. Think about it, we've traded a profession that has historically been one of the few to tell truth to power for free cloud software. And we paid for our cloud software and for our and social media¹ skinner boxes, by voluntarily giving our own surveillance data to private non-acountable entities² which probably collude with the government, and which lose our data to organised crime a few times a year³. To me that doesn't sound so clever. 1: A kind of casino with the doors welded shut where the chips are the precious minutes of our lives. 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism. See also: https://privacysos.org/blog/nsa-calls-the-iphone-using-public-zombies-who-pay-for-their-own-surveillance/ https://privacysos.org/blog/nsa-calls-the-iphone-using-publi... 3: Equifax, yahoo data breaches just off the top of my head.
    - Alex63 7y ago
      >> I wish there were an equally clever idiom I could trot out when people criticise professions they probably know noting about. Isn't that "Pointy-Haired Boss syndrome"?
Medicalidiot 7y ago
I'm wondering when we start using biologics to attack parasites. We've started using bacteriophages in trials to serious success, but I cannot wait until we start using something analogous to that to take out malaria. The reason I say this is malaria is a nasty pathogen whose ability to develop resistance is well documented so even though this is an exciting breakthrough, we will always need another exciting breakthrough on the horizon to continually fight it.
mmsimanga 7y ago
As a kid growing up in Malaria country I got yellow jaundice. Doctor told my dad that since I had had yellow jaundice I was "immune" to malaria. Its been 35 odd years since I have taken any malaria medication. Family members often get malaria once or so a year. A few years ago I decided to check to see if there were was any literature online with link between Malaria and jaundice. I couldn't find any papers online. Now I don't know whether what the doctor told my dad was true or there is something to be said about me having mentally told myself I am immune to malaria. To this day my dad maintains I cannot get malaria. The younger me believed him wholeheartedly, the older me would be grateful for some research papers on the topic.
- youeseh 7y ago
  This reminds me of an interesting story. The host of The Portal podcast, Eric Weinstein went on the Joe Rogan show where he shared a story: he used to get very easily sun burnt. No chance of getting a tan. He'd just burn. Then, one day he took LSD and then stopped burning. Crazy story. No follow up study =).
  - lxmorj 7y ago
    Sounds like Eric swapped consciousness with a parallel Eric that’s now very confused about his sunburn situation
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    Andy Weil has a very similar story about LSD curing his allergy to cats.
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    The Psychedelics Encylopedia (3rd Ed, Peter Stafford), P73 info on using LSD to cure various physical ailments. Too long to reproduce here, suggest you get the book, you won't regret it. Anyway, also shows before & after photos of of treatment of sever psoriasis with LSD and ritalin(?!)
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
tbabb 7y ago
This article is so bad it's basically saying nothing at all, and the headline is basically unsupported by the article. In fact, the quality/coherence of the whole thing seems to be about on par with those AI-generated articles from OpenAI a few months ago. This article shouldn't be here, let alone under this headline.
- reportgunner 7y ago
  Thank you, I thought so when reading the title so I decided to see the comments if I'm right first.
- mleonhard 7y ago
  Yes, the article refers to ivermectin as a bacteria. Ivermectin is a drug that kills parasites. If ivermectin actuall is effective against malaria, I would like to ask why did it take 40 years to discover this?!? Ivermectin causes severe reactions in people with onchocerciasis (River Blindness) unless treated carefully. Now that oncho is nearly eradicated, deploying ivermectin widely has become easier.
Havoc 7y ago
About time. Story: Grew up in an area that is close to but not in Malaria country. One day my mom comes back from visiting a friend that had malaria. Reports he was in tears due to suffering. ...that severely rattled me as a kid. Because I knew he's the kind of man that sews himself together again with fishing line. People like that do not as a general rule cry.
- grecy 7y ago
  I contracted Malaria twice while driving around Africa for three years. The first time in Mali was like the worst cold/flu I've ever had. The "cure" medicine (Coartem [1]) helped a lot. I was alright. The second time I was in remote Angola and it was B.A.D. I was only 35 and very fit and strong. For five days I did not walk, talk, eat, sleep or function in any way. My friends were injecting me with the stronger version of Coartem twice a day, and I thought my head was going to split open from the severe headache. I did not think I was actually going to die, but mighty close. I lost 20lbs in those 5 days. After that I was severely paranoid about covering up and using bug spray in the evenings, and I'm extremely happy I didn't get it again all through Southern and Eastern Africa for the 18 months after that. I've been reading up on the drugs that are supposed to permanently remove it from your system, but they seem to function best on the Asian strain of Malaria. Maybe I'll take it anyway to prevent a relapse. TLDR: I don't recommend getting Malaria. [1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/022268lbl.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/02...
whenchamenia 7y ago
I have to assume nobody read the article, it is nosenseical. Wtf hn.
bohm 7y ago
Ok translation: Ivermectin, a safe and well-tolerated bacteria-derived insecticide already used in humans, can kill mosquitoes. By feeding humans ivermectin, mosquito populations can be reduced, which in turn reduces spread of the malaria parasite which is transported via mosquitoes.
- mc32 7y ago
  Does it work with West Nile, Zika, EEE and other mosquito borne diseases too? If so that’d be even better news on top of good. Do the downvotes mean this blood medicine does not affect these mosquitoes?
  - stubish 7y ago
    The study looks completely focused on the malaria parasite and malaria carrying species, so we don't know for sure.
echang426 7y ago
Well it seems promising but nothing can be said until they can determine if this drug can actually be used safely for humans. But maybe the same issue will occur again where a resistance is built up to the drug from improper use and it'll become another battle to find the next malaria drug.
tinytrader 7y ago
That title is like satire bait. I was hoping I would see a huge slipper squatting gif after clicking through.
peteretep 7y ago
Disappointing that this might halt approaches that involve KILLING ALL THE MOSQUITOS
- blisterpeanuts 7y ago
  When dosed with ivermectin, people's blood becomes deadly to mosquitoes. I guess it's better than nothing. But like you, I want that entire species gone. Bite me and you die.
boratinos 7y ago
Yes.
- boratinos 7y ago
  Boratinos
ovi256 7y ago
Nobody posted the obligatory 'in mice' yet ? ... in mice.
- minitech 7y ago
  No, not in mice. The trials were on people in Burkina Faso.

329 points by elorant 7y ago

This article can’t seem to decide whether it’s discussing ivermectin - an old antiparasitic derived from the avermectin produced by streptomyces - or bacteria. It vacillates between “ivermectin effective” and “bacteria killed parasite,” which are in no way equivalent. The latter suggests something like “strep killed plasmodium, so maybe we can find the compound used and use it for malaria.” The latter suggests, well, ivermectin is the compound. God, science journalism from scientifically illiterate rehashes of press releases is always such garbage. The actual trial they are discussing doesn’t address using bacteria at all. It is directly the question of “if we repeatedly give ivermectin (the drug) to a population, can we reduce malaria transmission?” ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32321-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ) studied in 8 villages for 18 weeks during peak malaria season. With approx 75% participation, malaria incidence dropped around 20%. Please let’s change the link to the Lancet article.

andrewshadura 7y ago
Yeah, the summary (blood deadly to mosquitoes) seems completely unrelated to the rest of the article. I'm disappointed by the quality of this article.
nneonneo 7y ago
It almost sounds as if the journalist believes Ivermectin _is_ a bacteria and a drug derived from it is killing malaria. Agreed that this smacks of sloppy science journalism.
- giarc 7y ago
  I think you are right. Here is a quote from the author, who is obviously talking about a bacterium killing plasmodium, of which ivermectin is not. “We have discovered [that the] bacterium is highly effective in killing plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, but our research is more focused on pregnant women and children as they are more vulnerable. We are getting very motivating leads,” Kariuki said. Perhaps the issue is that Kariuki is not a listed author on the Lancet paper, so perhaps he's just providing comment generally and not specifically?
PaulHoule 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin Ivermeticin is commonly used in Veterinary medicine for cattle, horses, sheep, goats, dogs, etc. It is once in a while used to treat worms in people but is more common to use Pyrantel to treat human roundworm infections which are surprisingly common in developed countries. Thus it is a common drug and will not be crazy expensive. It seems expensive to me when I have to buy it for an animal bigger than me at first world prices, but it is cheap in developing countries.
newsreview1 7y ago
This science journalism isn't all that bad, actually. The article is clearly about Ivermectin, and never mentions "bacteria killed parasite" - Additionally, Ivermectin and other avermectins are macrocyclic lactones and are derived from the bacterium Streptomyces avermitilis. So even if teh article mentions bacteria... it's still not wrong.
- minitech 7y ago
  It’s the way the article mentions bacteria that’s wrong. The wording and capitalization really do imply that ivermectin is a species of bacteria.
projektfu 7y ago
A lot of the strangeness seems to be in quotes from Dr. Karikuri. Did the author of the article misquote him or are his statements that confused?

Crazyontap 7y ago

I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering). I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc). Anyone know what happened to it? If that were to come to fruition than a lot of disease in addition to malaria like chikungunya, dengue, etc will be cured too.

ChefboyOG 7y ago
This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week. The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The debate is around whether or not this will upset balance in ecosystems (many feel it will not). This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. Then there are others who are in general opposed to this sort of interference in an animal population on ethical grounds. Related article: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lab-tests-gene-drive-wiped-out-population-mosquitoes https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lab-tests-gene-drive-wip...
- mullingitover 7y ago
  > This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. This is so infuriating. Many people will die during this extended hemming and hawing. Humans have driven countless important species to extinction with no thought, but we have to vacillate over a species that is responsible for more deaths than all the wars in human history combined? My only reservation about driving the mosquitoes to extinction with a gene drive is that we can't guarantee that the mosquitoes will suffer.

gus_massa 7y ago

From the press article: > Child malaria episodes could be reduced by up to 20% if populations living in high-risk areas are given Ivermectin, [....] > An expert, independent from the study, said reports of resistance to the current class of malaria drugs are on the rise. [...] “There are cases of the drugs being sold over the counter, leading to their resistance and overuse. [...]” If the plan is to give everyone the new drug, why don't they expect to get resistant strains soon?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jessaustin 7y ago
We give it to our horses every year, and it still kills intestinal worms. Some genetic changes are just so large that they are extremely unlikely.
- projektfu 7y ago
  There is quite a lot of acquired resistance to ivermectin in horse strongyles. Just not in S. vulgaris that was causing infarction. Now, the recommendations for horses are changing to a quantitatively driven approach based on fecal egg count rather than routine annual deworming. Pasture rotation is also useful. In sheep, the barber-pole worm Haemonchus has become resistant to most approved parasiticides. Resistance is a definite problem.

webwielder2 7y ago

>science journalism I think this is the case for pretty much every area of journalism. If you are a subject matter expert, you quickly realize that 90% of coverage of that subject is dreadful.

chongli 7y ago
Yes, the Gell-Mann amnesia effect [1] needs to be made more widely known. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
- gerbilly 7y ago
  Yeah, but we've heard ad-nauseam about the Gell-Mann effect. I wish there were an equally clever idiom I could trot out when people criticise professions they probably know noting about. Journalism is an incredibly difficult field to work in, and journalism as a profession is just barely still a thing due to loss of advertising revenue to online platforms. Think about it, we've traded a profession that has historically been one of the few to tell truth to power for free cloud software. And we paid for our cloud software and for our and social media¹ skinner boxes, by voluntarily giving our own surveillance data to private non-acountable entities² which probably collude with the government, and which lose our data to organised crime a few times a year³. To me that doesn't sound so clever. 1: A kind of casino with the doors welded shut where the chips are the precious minutes of our lives. 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism. See also: https://privacysos.org/blog/nsa-calls-the-iphone-using-public-zombies-who-pay-for-their-own-surveillance/ https://privacysos.org/blog/nsa-calls-the-iphone-using-publi... 3: Equifax, yahoo data breaches just off the top of my head.
  - Alex63 7y ago
    >> I wish there were an equally clever idiom I could trot out when people criticise professions they probably know noting about. Isn't that "Pointy-Haired Boss syndrome"?

Medicalidiot 7y ago

I'm wondering when we start using biologics to attack parasites. We've started using bacteriophages in trials to serious success, but I cannot wait until we start using something analogous to that to take out malaria. The reason I say this is malaria is a nasty pathogen whose ability to develop resistance is well documented so even though this is an exciting breakthrough, we will always need another exciting breakthrough on the horizon to continually fight it.

mmsimanga 7y ago

As a kid growing up in Malaria country I got yellow jaundice. Doctor told my dad that since I had had yellow jaundice I was "immune" to malaria. Its been 35 odd years since I have taken any malaria medication. Family members often get malaria once or so a year. A few years ago I decided to check to see if there were was any literature online with link between Malaria and jaundice. I couldn't find any papers online. Now I don't know whether what the doctor told my dad was true or there is something to be said about me having mentally told myself I am immune to malaria. To this day my dad maintains I cannot get malaria. The younger me believed him wholeheartedly, the older me would be grateful for some research papers on the topic.

youeseh 7y ago
This reminds me of an interesting story. The host of The Portal podcast, Eric Weinstein went on the Joe Rogan show where he shared a story: he used to get very easily sun burnt. No chance of getting a tan. He'd just burn. Then, one day he took LSD and then stopped burning. Crazy story. No follow up study =).
- lxmorj 7y ago
  Sounds like Eric swapped consciousness with a parallel Eric that’s now very confused about his sunburn situation
- Alex3917 7y ago
  Andy Weil has a very similar story about LSD curing his allergy to cats.
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  The Psychedelics Encylopedia (3rd Ed, Peter Stafford), P73 info on using LSD to cure various physical ailments. Too long to reproduce here, suggest you get the book, you won't regret it. Anyway, also shows before & after photos of of treatment of sever psoriasis with LSD and ritalin(?!)
  - tempguy9999 7y ago

tbabb 7y ago

This article is so bad it's basically saying nothing at all, and the headline is basically unsupported by the article. In fact, the quality/coherence of the whole thing seems to be about on par with those AI-generated articles from OpenAI a few months ago. This article shouldn't be here, let alone under this headline.

reportgunner 7y ago
Thank you, I thought so when reading the title so I decided to see the comments if I'm right first.
mleonhard 7y ago
Yes, the article refers to ivermectin as a bacteria. Ivermectin is a drug that kills parasites. If ivermectin actuall is effective against malaria, I would like to ask why did it take 40 years to discover this?!? Ivermectin causes severe reactions in people with onchocerciasis (River Blindness) unless treated carefully. Now that oncho is nearly eradicated, deploying ivermectin widely has become easier.

Havoc 7y ago

About time. Story: Grew up in an area that is close to but not in Malaria country. One day my mom comes back from visiting a friend that had malaria. Reports he was in tears due to suffering. ...that severely rattled me as a kid. Because I knew he's the kind of man that sews himself together again with fishing line. People like that do not as a general rule cry.

grecy 7y ago
I contracted Malaria twice while driving around Africa for three years. The first time in Mali was like the worst cold/flu I've ever had. The "cure" medicine (Coartem [1]) helped a lot. I was alright. The second time I was in remote Angola and it was B.A.D. I was only 35 and very fit and strong. For five days I did not walk, talk, eat, sleep or function in any way. My friends were injecting me with the stronger version of Coartem twice a day, and I thought my head was going to split open from the severe headache. I did not think I was actually going to die, but mighty close. I lost 20lbs in those 5 days. After that I was severely paranoid about covering up and using bug spray in the evenings, and I'm extremely happy I didn't get it again all through Southern and Eastern Africa for the 18 months after that. I've been reading up on the drugs that are supposed to permanently remove it from your system, but they seem to function best on the Asian strain of Malaria. Maybe I'll take it anyway to prevent a relapse. TLDR: I don't recommend getting Malaria. [1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/022268lbl.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/02...

whenchamenia 7y ago

I have to assume nobody read the article, it is nosenseical. Wtf hn.

bohm 7y ago

Ok translation: Ivermectin, a safe and well-tolerated bacteria-derived insecticide already used in humans, can kill mosquitoes. By feeding humans ivermectin, mosquito populations can be reduced, which in turn reduces spread of the malaria parasite which is transported via mosquitoes.

mc32 7y ago
Does it work with West Nile, Zika, EEE and other mosquito borne diseases too? If so that’d be even better news on top of good. Do the downvotes mean this blood medicine does not affect these mosquitoes?
- stubish 7y ago
  The study looks completely focused on the malaria parasite and malaria carrying species, so we don't know for sure.

echang426 7y ago

Well it seems promising but nothing can be said until they can determine if this drug can actually be used safely for humans. But maybe the same issue will occur again where a resistance is built up to the drug from improper use and it'll become another battle to find the next malaria drug.

tinytrader 7y ago

That title is like satire bait. I was hoping I would see a huge slipper squatting gif after clicking through.

peteretep 7y ago

Disappointing that this might halt approaches that involve KILLING ALL THE MOSQUITOS

blisterpeanuts 7y ago
When dosed with ivermectin, people's blood becomes deadly to mosquitoes. I guess it's better than nothing. But like you, I want that entire species gone. Bite me and you die.

boratinos 7y ago

Yes.

boratinos 7y ago
Boratinos

ovi256 7y ago

Nobody posted the obligatory 'in mice' yet ? ... in mice.

minitech 7y ago
No, not in mice. The trials were on people in Burkina Faso.