Nicholas White: Elimination of Malaria — Transcript

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1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:14welcome back to equity VIII with us now
3. 0:16in the studio professor Sir Nicholas
4. 0:19white who's traveled in from Bangkok to
5. 0:21present a paper a keynote address to us
6. 0:24at Congress on possibly the elimination
7. 0:27of malaria is that nice to have you with
8. 0:30us sir and thank you is that a pipe
9. 0:32dream do you think all within our
10. 0:33lifetimes may we see the elimination of
11. 0:37malaria we could see the elimination of
12. 0:39malaria within our lifetimes but whether
13. 0:41we will or not I think he's less certain
14. 0:44malaria we think of as a tropical
15. 0:47disease but in fact a hundred years ago
16. 0:49malaria was found throughout most of the
17. 0:51inhabited world and there was tremendous
18. 0:53progress in getting rid of it from North
19. 0:56America Europe former Soviet republics
20. 0:58and marked reductions in many tropical
21. 1:00areas so much so that between 1955 and
22. 1:0567 the w-h-o endorsed a global
23. 1:10eradication campaign well and that
24. 1:13campaign had some success and some
25. 1:17failure and in the end it was abandoned
26. 1:18and then malaria came back big time
27. 1:21really from the 1970s onwards and that
28. 1:24resurgence of malaria was fuelled by
29. 1:28drug resistance in the parasite to the
30. 1:31anti malarial drugs and insecticide
31. 1:33resistance to the insecticides
32. 1:35so then since about the 2000 we've tried
33. 1:39to turn the tide back can we go for the
34. 1:41endgame it would require an awful lot of
35. 1:44money and a lot of effort and a
36. 1:48tremendous amount of commitment and I'm
37. 1:52less certain that that is available so
38. 1:55what was the essence sir then of your
39. 1:57presentation to this ecwid Congress
40. 1:59well I wanted to show that we can learn
41. 2:01a lot from history and malaria has a
42. 2:04long and fairly distinguished history
43. 2:05with excellent science going back really
44. 2:08since to the discovery in the 1880s and
45. 2:11various approaches have been evaluated
46. 2:14we learned a huge amount about malaria
47. 2:17in the first half of the last century
48. 2:18partly because it was used for verse ly
49. 2:21to treat people with syphilis so could
50. 2:24we learn from that so I reviewed the
51. 2:26history I brought us up to date with
52. 2:29progress and there's been really very
53. 2:31substantial progress since about 2000
54. 2:34with an estimate of 6.6 million lives
55. 2:38saved that's an awful lot of people
56. 2:40slightly saved and that's through two
57. 2:43things or three really one is use of
58. 2:45insecticides most importantly bed nets
59. 2:49which are impregnated with an
60. 2:50insecticide called permethrin and good
61. 2:52drugs as opposed to drugs that have died
62. 2:54from resistance now we've re-engaged
63. 2:58with the idea of going to get rid of it
64. 3:00all and that is threatened by resistance
65. 3:03and so we have this perverse situation
66. 3:06where most of the malaria in Africa but
67. 3:08the resistance always comes from
68. 3:09Southeast Asia where I work and it's
69. 3:12happened not once but twice before that
70. 3:15anti-malarial drug resistance has
71. 3:17started in Southeast Asia and spread in
72. 3:20people across India across the Indian
73. 3:22Ocean into the eastern seaboard of
74. 3:24Africa or across Africa and chloroquine
75. 3:27which was a fantastic drug the most
76. 3:30important than to malaria drug ever
77. 3:31probably toric wind resistance that
78. 3:35killed and this is not an exaggeration
79. 3:37millions of children in Africa
80. 3:38originated in Asia it actually
81. 3:40originated on the Thai Cambodian border
82. 3:42the drug that followed its alpha toxin
83. 3:45pyramid mean exactly the same thing the
84. 3:48resistance genes in the parasites that
85. 3:50spread throughout Africa they came from
86. 3:52that same place and now we have
87. 3:55resistance to the wonder drug the
88. 3:58Chinese discovered Artemis Lin emerging
89. 4:01in again the same place so is history
90. 4:03going to repeat itself for a third time
91. 4:04that's the concern amazing well more
92. 4:07power to you and the work and the
93. 4:09studies that you're doing
94. 4:10and thank you for presenting to us at
95. 4:12the ecwid congress thank you pleasure to
96. 4:14have you with us thank you for joining
97. 4:16us