June 8, 2015 – A new study appearing in the journal PLOS Pathogens last month demonstrates that the drug sildenafil, known popularly as Viagra, could prevent malaria transmission.
Why?
Because the drug changes the physiology of red blood cells infected by plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that mosquitoes transmit to us to cause malaria. Viagra stiffens red blood cell walls deforming them. That flags the cells for destruction when filtered through the spleen.
Malaria cases in 2013 were close to 200 million with almost 600,000 dying from the disease annually.
The authors of the paper are not advocating we treat susceptible populations with Viagra. But they are arguing that drugs that cause deformation in red blood cells could prove to be a novel way to fight those diseases that are blood borne.
Maybe we can invent a Viagra that doesn’t have the extra side effect, you know the one that treats erectile dysfunction.
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