PARIS A research group led by Bernard Meunier of the Laboratory for Coordination Chemistry in Toulouse, southern France, has discovered a new class of molecule that is effective against malaria, reports the French research organization CNRS.

The molecule named "trioxaquine" is made up of two parts fused together, an "aminoquino-lein" and a "trioxan". Both attack pathogens in different ways and therefore act as a combined "double therapy".

The earliest results of test on animals have proved very successful, the researchers told the journal ****Chembiochem****.

More than 300 million people per year fall victim to malaria, and more than a million of them die as a result, especially pregnant women and children under five. Medicines used up to now to combat the disease, particularly chloroquine, become increasingly ineffective because the body develops a resistance to it.

(DPA)