"Drug-resistant malaria appears to have taken hold in much of Myanmar, and scientists aren?t exactly sure how. It may have spread here from elsewhere, or it may have emerged independently, but in any case, the strategy to fight it seems set for a major change. More than a decade ago, the deadliest type of malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, evolved in Cambodia, becoming resistant to the main anti-malaria drug, artemisinin. For several years, resistant parasites have also been detected along the Myanmar-Thailand border, as well as in Bago Region, but earlier this year, scientists revealed that the problem may be much greater than was previously realized. In February, a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal showed that at 55 malaria treatment centers across the country, nearly 40 percent of parasite samples had genetic mutations linked to artemisinin resistance. In fact, these mutations were found in seven of the country?s 10 administrative regions, including in Homalin, Sagaing Region, only 15 miles from the Indian border. And that?s a big deal. Myanmar—stretching from the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea in the south to the Himalayan mountains in the north—offers the only known path for resistant parasites to make their way contiguously to the Indian subcontinent, and from there to Africa, where the disease already kills hundreds of thousands of children every year. This has happened in the past with other anti-malarial drugs that were once powerful but are now ineffective, resulting in the loss of millions of lives..."