Malaria Drug Regains It's Punch

A crucial malaria drug that lost it's punch in most countries because of germ resistance now appears to be highly effective again in one African nation - a startling shift with implications for other tough bugs.

It appears to be the first time a drug widely used against a killer disease has regained effectiveness after a break in use. " We didn't expect to see this," said researcher Chistopher Plowe of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "I'm not aware of any case where a drug wasn't working clinically and was withdrawn and now is 100 percent effective again." The drug, chloroquine, was for many years the standard for treating malaria because it is very cheap, effective and safe. But in 1993, doctors stopped using it in the African nation of Malawi, because it was no longer effective in fighting most malaria cases. However, in recent years, researchers saw signs of genetic shifts in malaria that suggested it might again be vulnerable to chloroquine.