Awwal 15, 1432 / April 19, 2011, SPA -- European researchers have found that chemotherapydrugs used to treat cancer also kill the parasite that causes malaria, in what the European Commission on Tuesday hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against the deadly mosquito-borne disease, dpa reported. "This discovery could lead to an effective anti-malaria treatment that would save millions of lives and transform countless others," the European Union's research commissioner, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, said in a statement. The research was led by EU-funded laboratories in Britain, France and Switzerland. They found that the malaria's plasmodium parasite "hijacks" enzymes in human cells to multiply and that it can be stopped from doing so with chemotherapy drugs. Scientists believe that the discovery will open the door to making cells inhospitable for plasmodium, rather than attacking the parasite directly - an approach that has been hampered by the plasmodium's ability to quickly become drug resistant. "This strategy deprives the parasite of a major modus operandi for development of drug resistance," the commission said. The World Health Organization had warned in January that the world risked "losing its most potent treatment for malaria" because of drug-resistant parasites, as some have already been found on the border between Cambodia and Thailand. -- SPA
