Experts warn of disease's deadly spread in Asia

As virulent, drug-resistant strains of malaria spread in Asia, governments in the Asia-Pacific region must redouble their efforts to eradicate the disease, amid the growing risk that these new forms will spread to South Asia, China and Africa, according to participants at a regional conference on the disease.

Experts spoke about their concerns days before the British medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases published a study showing that a strain resistant to the fast-acting malaria drug artemisinin, had spread further than experts had feared, to western Myanmar, 25km from the Indian border.

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Ron Corben, Contributing writer for Nikei Asian Review interviewed Dr Rajitha Senaratne, Minister of Health and Indigenous, Sri Lanka as well as Ben Rolfe, APLMA Executive Secretary while attending APLMA Reference Group Meeting held in Bangkok, 13 February 2015.

The article was published in Nikkei Asian Review on 20 February 2015