Inventory on malaria drug resistance in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal

Antimalarial drug resistance has emerged as one of the greatest challenges facing malaria control today. The last decade has seen the spread of drug-resistant malaria in the Indian subcontinent also. The resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to chloroquine was first observed half a century ago. By the late 1980s, the parasite showed increased resistance to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and mefloquine. It is thus highly likely that the parasite will eventually develop resistance to any drug that is used widely. In addition, the development of new drugs takes much longer than development of parasitological resistance (Bloland, 2001). While this has complicated the control of P. falciparum, it has also led to several studies on the efficacy of antimalarials