Burgess Connections
Graham Knight

Dialog about malaria control

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Dear Graham

Thank you for sending me this information. I guess you remember there was a time when I was working rather passionately on malaria issues, and was part of IMMC ... the Integrated Malaria Management Consortium or Integrated Mosquito and Malaria Control ... take your pick!. Some of the members of this group were 'world class' and I had the rather pedestrian role of trying to do long term financial modelling for malaria control and possibly malaria eradication.

What you have come across, if my memory serves me right, is the natural base of what is now the first line of malaria drug treatment. When I was working with IMMC, one of the issues was that malaria, like most diseases has the ability to get out of control because of resistance building up in the system. This has happened with all of the past drugs, and the artimisem based drugs are likely to go the same way ... but more rapidly for a variety of reasons. I think I am right in saying that by using artemisem in a near natural state, there will be a build up of resistance far more quickly than if a more careful use is implemented.

To a great degree I agree with your concern that the major big name drug companies tend to be more interested in their stockholders than anything else ... but within the scientific community there are many who have a long and deep commitment to doing the very best for the health of people, rich and poor.

There are better ways to control malaria than bednets, drugs, etc. The best of the better ways is to control the mosquito ... something that can be done and has been done. Malaria used to be a big problem in the South of Europe and almost all of the United States. The key to cost effective control of malaria is to do mosquito control in a modern manner ... something that goes on routinely in the USA all the time as well as in many other parts of the world. The story of Darwin Australia comes to mind ... a place where malaria used to be a huge problem, and now a place where mosquito and malaria control is treated very seriously, and the problem of malaria is very much under control.

Good to hear from you again. Let's stay in touch.

Peter

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Peter Burgess
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On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Graham Knight wrote:

A cure for Malaria?

I've been sent some information by the renowned NGO ECHO who are running courses on medicinal herbs in Kenya. Visit http://www.echocommunity.org/events/event_details.asp?id=305217

I then contacted the NGO Pageant http://pageant.org.uk/ who I know and who work in the Gambia.

They tell me that their patients given this 'tea' show signs of recovery within 24 hours!

A search then led to several interesting sites including one from which I have taken the extracts below.

As other NGOs state, great efforts are being made to protect the pharmaceutical companies from the menace of this natural cure!

SUMMARY from www.iday.org/EN/02whatwedo/docs/sections/artemisiaannua/Artemisia_annua_against_malaria.pdf

Current efforts to stop malaria in Africa are threatened by their high cost, the reduction in foreign aid and the resistances to the latest pharmaceutical product put on the market: artemisinin, a molecule extracted from Artemisia annua.

In contrast, Artemisia annua used as a natural tea opens a promising path: it shows no known side effect, is not toxic, and has so far not been contrived by any resistances. It is repellent against mosquitoes and effective against all types of malarias, both preventively and curatively, in the forms of tea, capsule or powder. Research and observations on the ground suggest that it is also effective against other deadly tropical diseases such as dysentery.

Hence, IDAY pleads for lifting the prohibition against the sale of Artemisia annua natural products in some European countries and for conducting conclusive research on natural uses of Artemisia annua as the fastest road to eradicate malaria in Africa. 1,2,

3. CONCLUSIONS

The current means used to combat malaria in Africa are not sustainable, for technical as well as financial reasons. Too many uncertainties cloud the pharmaceutical derivates of Artemisia annua to justify that for their sake, the natural uses of the plant be prevented. At any rate, their expansion can no longer be stopped.

The future of Africans does not allow any particular interested party to impose its single solution, especially when it is subject to considerable scientific uncertainty. ACT-based solutions cannot stand in the way of other equally or even more valuable solutions, particularly if they are economically clearly more equitable and sustainable.

It is not Ifbv’s or IDAY’s intention to suggest that natural derivates of Artemisia annua should substitute for the other malaria treatments.

Cultivating Artemisia annua remains a delicate undertaking that will be adopted only by those who cannot afford the other treatments.

Hence, it is complementary.

Opposition to repulsive, preventive and curative uses of natural extracts of Artemisia annua out of fear that it might create resistances, or its classification as a toxic crop are based on no scientific elements. If anything, the scientific evidence goes in the other direction.

Whatever the decisions made, there is an urgent need for thorough research since what were believed to be accepted as a key role of artemisinin is thrown into doubt by recent findings concerning the anti-malaria impact of various Artemisia species with no artemisinin, and of Artemisia annua varieties with low artemisinin-content – including the original Chinese ones.

Ifbv and members of the IDAY network, representing more than 300 organisations, request donors to rapidly provide the appropriate funding for the clinical tests needed to establish the optimal and safest conditions for the natural uses of Artemisia annua. Costs of these tests remain well below current financial contributions to develop vaccines or other anti-malaria treatments.

Eradication of malaria is possible!

There is other information that can be sent and I will support any NGO that wishes to look further into this possibility. Dry 'tea'is available in the UK and free samples will be willingly sent to anyone wishing to give this a try.

However proper production requires cuttings to be taken from Artemisia annua plants and I will supply addresses when requested.

Graham K
BioDesign