By Maggie Fox
Researchers have developed a new, long-acting malaria drug that they believe may help fight one of the world's biggest killers.
The drug, still known by its experimental name "DSM265," can stop the malaria parasite at several stages in its life cycle, the researchers report in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Tests in people have begun.
"DSM265 could be among the first single-dose cures for malaria, and would be used in partnership with another drug," said Dr. Margaret Phillips of the University of Texas Southwestern, a pharmacologist who worked on the drug's development.
"The drug also could potentially be developed as a once-weekly preventive," she said.
Malaria infected 198 million people in 2013, according to the World Health Organization. It killed more than 580,000 people, mostly children under the age of 5.