African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic Why ... - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 47 – Breakthrough Reported inMalaria Drug TrialAsked how soon human trials would begin, he said itwas hard to make precise predictions about the timingof trials.He added: “Drug development has several stages andsometimes requires taking one step back to make twosteps forward. When we get the animal efficacy data, itwill tell us whether we need to use our artificialintelligence software to make the drugs more potent orless toxic.”Mr. Bellenson explained that the current malarial drugshave a similar mode of action and the parasites becomeresistant to chemicals related to these older drugs quiteeasily.“Our compounds are a completely different chemicalstructure and are therefore likely to work by blockingdifferent proteins activities,” he added.“In addition, our compounds may have anotheradvantage to work against sleeping sickness, Naganaand kala azar as well as malaria. This would simplifydrug stocking logistics and administration to sickpatients.”Malaria is the leading cause of illness and death inUganda, accounting for 25-40 per cent of all outpatientvisits at healthcare facilities.Up to 20 per cent of all hospital admissions and 15 percent of in-patient deaths are due to malaria.☻☻☻☻☻☻Farmers Reap Fortunes ofMalaria TreatmentGodwin Muhwezi-BongeDaily MonitorMarch 4, 2008Mr. John Tabaro, an elderly farmer in Kabale Districtwho has tilled the land for years growing mainlysorghum made his first Shs2 million last year thanks toa “little-known” crop Sweet Wormwood whosescientific name is Artemsia annua.“I made about Shs2 million after three months ofgrowing [it], I had never made so much money before[and now] I managed to take my children to school andall I think of is more and more artemesia,” he saidgleefully.Such is the reception the alien crop has received in anarea with no tradition of growing cash crops that afterthree seasons of uninterrupted cash flow, farmers are-49- Traditional African Clinic October 2008considering replacing of traditional food crops with thequick maturing artemesia, a crop used in the productionof artemesinin - an ingredient in the manufacture of antimalariadrugs such as Coartem, and Artemether.“I have so far given up on growing sorghum, a traditionalcrop regarded highly in the area. “I prefer Artemesiabecause it matures faster [3 months] and gives higherreturns compared to sorghum that takes seven months,”he said.Two years ago, farmers like Mr. Tabaro were hard tofind. “People were at first reluctant to take on the cropbecause of the bad experience they had had with the nowdefunct Agro Management [a company that introducedpyrethrum growing in the area],” Mr Cleth Rugwiza, theextension officer of Aflo Alpine Pharma Ltd (AAPL),said.Introduced in 2005, artemesia was not well received asfarmers remained reluctant to hurriedly replace their foodcrops with the untested cash crop on fragmented pieces ofland.When the pioneers registered successes, Mr Rugwizasaid, more farmers then clamoured for more seedlingsfrom extension agents. Outgrowers have since grownfrom 350 farmers when the crop was first introduced tomore than 12,000 farmers to date.“We did a lot of work to diminish the negative experiencethrough sensitization in churches, and public gatherings,”he said.Mr. Aggrey Bitungukye, another farmer, said:” At first, Ithought a kilogramme of dried leaves was difficult toraise but when I managed to raise about 220 kilogramsfrom my piece of land, I picked up even more interest.”Income BoostPersuaded by the need to diversify incomes ofsubsistence farmers in Kabale, Aflo Alpine PharmaLimited, introduced the cultivation of a locally grown,affordable anti-malarial treatments, for distribution inlocal, regional, and international markets.“Kabale was chosen for its alpine climate akin to that ofVietnam and India where the plant is mainly grown,” MrRugwiza said.Chloroquine and quinine-based derivatives have longbeen used in the treatment of malaria in sub-SaharanAfrica, where the disease kills about 3,000 per day.However, patients’ increasing resistance to traditionalanti-malarial drugs, and the need to stem off malarialdeaths has given birth to a new line of treatment inArtemesinin Combination Therapy, of which artemesiniaextracted from Artemesia annua forms a vital component.Continued on page 51