“We don’t need to panic, but we need to be fast,” says Dr. François Nosten, director of the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), a research institute for malaria on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, as he leans back in his chair and frowns. “If we don’t stop it where it is now, it’s going to spread.” It is a warning that is echoed by scientists across Southeast Asia, where reports of a new drug-resistant form of P. falciparum, the deadliest malaria parasite, began to emerge in 2015.
