Editorial

The rationale and plan for creating a World Antimalarial Resistance Network (WARN)

Carol H Sibley^1*, Karen I Barnes² and Christopher V Plowe³

• * Corresponding author: Carol H Sibley sibley@u.washington.edu

Author Affiliations

¹ Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195-5065 USA

² Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

³ Center for Vaccine Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 685 West Baltimore Street, HSF1-480, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, USA

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Malaria Journal 2007, 6:118 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-6-118

Published: 6 September 2007

Abstract

Drug resistant malaria was a major factor contributing to the failure of a worldwide campaign to eradicate malaria in the last century, and now threatens the large investment being made by the global community in the rollout of effective new drug combinations to replace failed drugs. Four related papers in this issue of Malaria Journal make the case for creating the World Antimalarial Resistance Network (WARN), which will consist of four linked open-access global databases containing clinical, in vitro, molecular and pharmacological data, and networks of reference laboratories that will support these databases and related surveillance activities. WARN will serve as a public resource to guide antimalarial drug treatment and prevention policies and to help confirm and characterize the new emergence of new resistance to antimalarial drugs and to contain its spread.