Cerebral malaria causes the brain and spinal tissues of its victims to swell or expand. Many children die. Others develop memory problems and have learning difficulties.

Recently, scientists in the United States and Brazil discovered that the drug lovastatin may help. The drug is normally used to lower cholesterol levels in the blood.

Guy Zimmerman works at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City. He and his research team performed tests on a group of mice infected with the disease. Half of the animals were given chloroquine, a well-known malaria drug. The other half also received lovastatin.

“The mice that got the anti-malarial drug and the lovastatin had a significantly reduced incident of the late brain dysfunction.”

Lovastatin is one of many drugs that limit how the body’s natural defenses against disease react to infection. A certain amount of swelling is expected when a person is sick. But sometimes there is too much swelling, and the body begins to harm itself.

Dr. Zimmerman suggests that lovastatin be used in the treatment of sepsis, also known as blood poisoning. It, like cerebral malaria, sickens and kills many people around the world each year.

Researchers have asked American health officials to act quickly to approve lovastatin for malarial patients. But they know that many tests will need to be done in many parts of Africa where the disease causes so much misery.