疟疾数据opened up to combat drug resistance

A huge trove of aggregated data onmalaria专家说，来自世界各地的寄生虫正在解锁该生物体进化的遗传秘密，并可以协助与耐药性进行不断的斗争。

科学家分析了来自28个国家的7,000粒恶性疟原虫疟原虫的遗传变异，并策划了数据以使其可供其他研究人员使用，包括那些没有遗传学专业知识的研究人员。

开放的access dataset, analysed in a study that is currently undergoing peer review in the journal惠康开放研究,represents the world’s largest resource of基因组根据英国剑桥的惠康桑格研究所（Wellcome Sanger Institute）的说法，有关疟疾寄生虫进化和耐药性的数据。

“As we continue to build understanding about how variation among malaria parasites contributes to vaccine efficacy, I think this will be a really valuable resource for making sure vaccine development proceeds at a faster pace.”

哈佛T.H.助理教授Daniel Neafsey陈公共卫生学院

理查德·皮尔森（Richard Pearson），合着者和数据惠康桑格学院的科学家告诉SciDev.Netthe data could help in the search for new drugs and vaccines, and the development of surveillance tools needed to control and eliminate malaria.

The Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is transmitted to people via mosquito bites, is the deadliest malaria parasite globally and the most prevalent species in Africa, where it accounted for almost 100 per cent of malaria cases in 2018, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

疟疾is preventable and curable, yet remains a major global health problem, with an estimated 229 million cases and 409,000 deaths in 2019, according tothe WHO.

非洲地区的非洲地区受到了不成比例的影响，占2019年疟疾病例和死亡的94％，尽管东南亚，东地中海，西太平洋和美洲的人们也处于危险之中。

寄生虫对抗疟疾的抗性药物has been a recurring problem since the 1950s. Pearson, also of the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute, said the curated data could help build understanding of the genetics of this resistance.

“Malaria parasites are constantly evolving, for example, in ways that can make them resistant to the different drugs used to treat malaria,” he said. “Understanding which genes are changing, and where in the world this is happening, can help with control programmes.”

皮尔森说，寄生虫的其他遗传变化可能导致诊断测试失败，导致患者未接受正确的治疗。

他补充说：“我们正在与寄生虫进行一场持续的军备竞赛。”“我们尝试新事物，新药等等，但是寄生虫与一生一样，不断发展，以寻找它们。我们正在努力保持领先地位。”

The data was produced by MalariaGEN, a global network of groups who are leading separate studies into the biology and epidemiology of malaria while working together to build data resources aimed at controlling the disease.

研究人员进行49研究在全球73个地区in Africa, Asia, South America and Oceania together contributed 7,113 samples of P. falciparum for the aggregated analysis and scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute sequenced each sample, looking at more than three million changes in the parasite’s DNA.

“Going forwards, as the dataset grows, the longer-term goal is to help inform the decision making of national malaria control programmes, to enable them to answer questions like, ‘Which drugs should we be using in which places?’ based on near real-time, high-quality data.”

根据世卫组织的说法，迫切需要更强大的疟疾监测系统来解决流行地区的疾病。

哈佛T.H.免疫学和传染病助理教授Daniel Neafsey。美国公共卫生学院告诉SciDev.Net: “This dataset is the latest and largest agglomeration of Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite genomic data in the world.

“A lot of the value comes from the consistent, homogeneous and very high-quality way in which the data are analysed. This can really help, for example, with sifting the importance of different mutations that signal drug resistance for ongoing drug-resistance surveillance.

“As we continue to build understanding about how variation among malaria parasites contributes to vaccine efficacy, I think this will be a really valuable resource for making sure vaccine development proceeds at a faster pace.”