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The enormous effort and investment to tackle malaria, with a view to eradicating one day be lost if you spread a form of the disease that is resistant to the drugs more accessible and widespread throughout the world, today warned the World Health Organization Health Organization (WHO).

To prevent this from happening, the organization presented a global plan to contain resistance to artemisinin, the plant that provides the basis for conventional treatments for type of malaria that causes more deaths.

“Our greatest weapon is threatened,” said WHO Director General Margaret Chan. That is why a plan is urgently needed because there are no other bad drugs that offer the same level of efficacy and tolerability among patients. In that sense, the organization seeks to intensify and coordinate efforts to prevent the spread of the disease in resistant version.

Chan said that recently it was confirmed that the core of the resistant form of malaria is on the border between Thailand and Cambodia, while another outbreak is suspected in the vast area that crosses the Mekong River.

He explained that the specific objective of the global plan to stop the outbreak presented unresponsive to artemisinin, which is currently controlling your home, and avoid or at least delay, international spread.

In the last decade, the number of malaria cases fell 40% in countries where the disease is endemic, so that in this period were saved 750,000 lives. Progress has been most noticeable since 2006, when widespread use of insecticide-treated nets and artemisinin-based treatments.

Among the objectives that trace the global plan are, first, stop the spread of resistant forms of the parasite, although this “will require additional resources,” said Chan. Specifically, it will take between 10 and $ 20 more per person in areas with confirmed resistance and between 8 and 10 dollars in risk areas, such as the Great Mekong.

WHO also considers it essential to intensify the monitoring and surveillance of resistance, because of the 75 countries should systematically undertake efficacy trials of treatments, only 31 comply with them.

“There is a risk that in the areas not under permanent surveillance of resistance to artemisinin resistance extends seamlessly,” according to the body.

Another key measure is to improve access to diagnostic tests for malaria, so that conventional treatments are applied rationally.

When a person who does not get malaria drugs against the disease-which occurs frequently in Africa in cases of fever, increases the risk that your body creates resistance.

It is known that human reproduction is relatively ineffective. Each month, a couple with no problems conceiving, it is only 7% chance of achieving pregnancy. The chances are further reduced in those with fertility problems, even to this objective cannot be spontaneously in 15% of cases.

However, advances in assisted reproduction were able to reverse the fate of many. From birth in 1986 of the first IVF babies in Argentina until the present, assisted reproduction remained steady growth.

In less than 25 years, diagnosis, description of the various disorders that may affect reproduction, the selection of eggs and sperm and the implementation of assisted reproductive technology (including advances) allowed better results when implementing an action strategy.

Today is still possible to preserve fertility in cases where the woman must receive cancer treatments like chemotherapy or radiotherapy, to avoid the inheritance of disease from the selection of embryos, defer motherhood through the cry preservation of eggs and increasingly control more effectively the multiple gestation, “said Gabriel Fishbone, head of the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Gynecology and Reproduction Studies (Cagier).

However, the degree of effectiveness of these innovations also depends on a crucial variable: the age of the woman. Despite scientific advances, the female biological clock remains intact. “From the age of 35 fertility declines and increases the risk of genetic abnormalities in offspring,” said Fishbone.

That is why a couple does not realize that pregnancy after a year of searching should consult a reproductive specialist, a diagnosis and begin the necessary studies without further delay. Especially if it comes to women over the barrier of 35.

First is a history in which notes all the antecedents that may be related to the difficulty of achieving a pregnancy, for example, registration of sexually transmitted diseases, surgery, chronic problems, drug use, alcohol or cigarette.

Through control of temperature, hormone analysis and implementation of translational ultrasound, we studied whether the woman is ovulating normally. “Then there is a ray of the uterus and fallopian tubes called a hysterosalpingogram, which evaluates the path traveled by sperm and egg to meet,” he added.

Also important is the Gynecologic ultrasonography to rule out uterine fibroids that may affect the implantation or cause abortions.

The man, meanwhile, should be studied simultaneously, and that male problems represent 50% of cases. In this case seeks to establish if your semen is normal and if after intercourse, the sperm find the underlying cause of the uterus and cervix ascend. It is recommended to make a study of compatibility between sperm and cervical mucus as, of course; they must swim through the substance in his rise to the egg.