A study ºÙºÙÊÓƵ researchers published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation found that adding a popular high blood pressure drug to standard treatment more than tripled the survival rate of infected mice.Ìý
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infection—a bite passes a parasite into the bloodstream. Eliminated from the United States in the 1950s, the disease still kills hundreds of thousands each year, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa.
The study results address cerebral malaria, which is when the parasite causes swelling and bleeding in the brain. Globally, around 1 percent of the 216 million people infected with malaria each year develop cerebral malaria.Ìý
Dr. Ana Rodriguez, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at ºÙºÙÊÓƵ.
Photo: Karsten Moran
About one in five people with cerebral malaria die within 48 hours of being admitted to the hospital, the time it takes for the best parasite-killing drug to take effect. Adding a common blood pressure drug during that window appears to prevent hemorrhaging, senior study author , associate professor in the at ºÙºÙÊÓƵ tells The New York Times. That simple move, she says, “would buy time so they don’t die in the meanwhile, and save lives.â€Â
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