SAYE: Herbal Tea Combats Malaria
By News Staff | April 16th 2015 03:49 PM
However, some herbal medicines work and an analysis of the pharmacological properties of an herbal medication derived from Cochlospermum planchonii (a shrubby weed known as N'Dribala), Phyllanthus amarus and Cassia alata shows that it may be the case with SAYE, which means “jaundice” in the Dioula language.
When combined with leaves and aerial portions of the latter two plants and formulated as a tea, C. planchonii has shown enough efficacy to be licensed and sold as an antimalarial phytomedicine - in Burkina Faso, anyway. Phytomedicine, a name coined by Henri Leclerc in the early part of the 20th century, is a more formal term for the practice of herbal medicine. Dr. Merlin Willcox of the University of Oxford, Dr. Zéphirin Dakuyo (Phytofla, Banfora, Burkina Faso), and coauthors discuss the antimalarial and pharmacological properties of the herbal medication along with the early evaluation, development, and production of this phytomedicine.
In Vivo Antimalarial Activity of Whole Plant Extracts of P. amarus in Mice with Established Infection (Curative Test). Credit:
doi:10.1089/acm.2014.0147
They also discuss the ongoing research and challenges in scaling up cultivation and harvesting of the plants and in production of the final product. The article also describes other traditional uses of the medication, such as to treat hepatitis.
The big question is, when an herbal medicine goes mainstream, will people who don't trust doctors or double-blind clinical trials still want to take it? Citation: Dakuyo Zéphirin, Meda Aline Lamien, Ollo Da, Kiendrebeogo Martin, Traoré-Coulibaly Maminata, Novak Johannes, Benoit-Vical Françoise, Weisbord Emma, and Willcox Merlin, 'SAYE: The Story of an Antimalarial Phytomedicine from Burkina Faso', The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, doi:10.1089/acm.2014.0147
http://www.malariaworld.org/search/site/herbal%20tea
Why is WHO opposed to an effective anti-malarial tea ?
The
following article was published in SLATE Magazine on April 4 by Brendan
Borrell. Our association IFBV-BELHERB from Luxembourg is glad to read
that some independent voices recognize the merit of Artemisia annua
herbal medicine and proud to see that through R&D at their
universities Africans will find their own solutions in the fight against
tropical diseases. Hereafter excerpts from the paper. The full text is
available at www.slate.com/.../wormwood_tea_to_treat_malaria
Why is the WHO opposed to an effective anti-malarial tea
For once, an herbal remedy actually works. Why are malaria experts against it?
ENTEBBE, Uganda It's a little after 9 a.m. on the Wagagai Flower Farm, and Robert Watsusi pedals a bicycle laden with two 3-gallon jugs of a hot, bitter black tea. As he rounds a corner, workers emerge from football field–size growing houses to imbibe their weekly dose of the elixir they say keeps them free from malaria. … The tea comes from sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua), the Chinese plant that is a source for the world's most powerful anti-malarial treatments, which combine artemisinin derivatives with an older class of drugs. It can also be grown in wetter parts of Africa, and a year’s supply costs no more than a few dollars. Although the tea itself has traditionally been used in treatment, not prevention, in China, a randomized clinical trial on this farm showed that workers who drank it regularly reduced their risk of suffering from multiple episodes of malaria by one-third. For a group of people who were once waylaid by this mosquito-borne disease four or more times per year, the tea is a godsend.
Which is why you may be surprised to learn that the World Health Organization and a majority of malaria researchers are adamantly opposed to it. To be fair, there are compelling reasons not to endorse an herbal tea in a fight against a potentially deadly disease. After all, conventional single-molecule drugs are honed through chemistry to be safer, more specific, and more effective than their herbal progenitors. More critically, malaria experts worry that unregulated use of this tea could cause the malaria parasite to develop resistance to artemisinin drugs.
But the tea’s mere existence and its rapid spread challenges the view that conventional pharmaceuticals are the best and only way of managing Africa’s health care problems. After all, experts in the international aid world talk a lot about sustainability, and nothing is more sustainable than a drug grown on a shrub… The story of artemisinin demonstrates that even the best malaria drugs are worthless if they are not getting to the people who need them. …
Today, although ACTs are heavily subsidized by the international aid community, local clinics frequently run out of stock, and Africans often end up with substandard, ineffective, and sometimes counterfeit medications. Long before ACTs were available in Uganda, rumors of Artemisia’s powers began to spread. In 1998, a German organization called Action for Natural Medicine (Anamed) began distributing seeds and cuttings from Artemisia including a potent hybrid called A3, in 75 different countries. ….
However, no organization I know of has taken things quite as far as the Dutch-owned Wagagai Flower Farm. In 2005, the farm’s owners were struggling because more than one-third of their 1,500 workers were falling ill with malaria each year. The Tororo Botanical Garden in Fort Portal provided Artemisia seeds, and the owners began distributing the tea for free, not for treatment but for prevention of malaria episodes. Soon afterward, a researcher named Patrick Ogwang with the Ugandan Ministry of Health documented a decline of malaria incidence among almost 300 workers drinking the tea, and followed up with the randomized controlled trial demonstrating the tea’s effectiveness. Today, workers like Peter Osire, an irrigation supervisor, tell me it has been years since they had a fever. While the workers are effusive about the tea, malaria experts have taken less kindly to it.
When Ogwang tried to publish the results in Malaria Journal a reviewer largely praised the quality of the science but nixed publication out of concern that use of the tea could render ACTs ineffective. It’s a remarkably patronizing recommendation: that a scientific journal should keep the latest evidence out of the hands of Africans, lest they begin treating themselves. Marcel Hommel, editor in chief of the journal, defends the decision, saying, “It is the responsibility of an editor to avoid publishing papers that promote interventions which could potentially put patients at risk.” Ogwang eventually published his results in a less prestigious journal. …
The tea has become widespread enough that last year the WHO published a statement opposing it for either treatment or prevention of malaria, and an online survey of malaria experts found that 72 percent were opposed to its use in prevention. Their view is that low-dose, persistent use could breed resistance, which would be disastrous. But we’re not talking about pumping pigs full of unnecessary antibiotics. We’re talking about desperate people trying to live normal lives. And, in Wagagai, after years of preventive use, resistance has not sprung up. Ogwang says that may be because the tea, like other herbal products, contains multiple active compounds besides artemisinin. Cinchona bark is still effective after hundreds of years even though chloroquine (a derivative) is not. The Chinese have been using wormwood for more than 1,500 years for a variety of ailments, but the only place where we’ve seen signs of artemisinin resistance is on the Thai-Cambodian border, where conventional ACT artemisinin drugs are used….
Ogwang is now trying to test whether the tea remains effective for prevention even if the artemisinin is eliminated, an idea that sounds crazy but that could eliminate the objection that the tea could stimulate resistance. …Some herbs do have medically active compounds, albeit with varying levels of efficacy, and Africans are choosing to go that route because they know that drug supply won’t be cut off by war or corruption or bureaucratic incompetence. Herbs are not always going to be the right strategy, but the data about these unconventional interventions should be shared and discussed. In the case of malaria,…there have long been indications that using a cruder, cheaper whole-plant extract could potentially be more effective and cheaper..
In a study conducted in rats last year, University of Massachusetts researchers compared a single dose of pure artemisinin to dried whole leaves, and found that the whole plant was better at killing malaria parasites…
Brendan Borrell
Why is the WHO opposed to an effective anti-malarial tea
For once, an herbal remedy actually works. Why are malaria experts against it?
ENTEBBE, Uganda It's a little after 9 a.m. on the Wagagai Flower Farm, and Robert Watsusi pedals a bicycle laden with two 3-gallon jugs of a hot, bitter black tea. As he rounds a corner, workers emerge from football field–size growing houses to imbibe their weekly dose of the elixir they say keeps them free from malaria. … The tea comes from sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua), the Chinese plant that is a source for the world's most powerful anti-malarial treatments, which combine artemisinin derivatives with an older class of drugs. It can also be grown in wetter parts of Africa, and a year’s supply costs no more than a few dollars. Although the tea itself has traditionally been used in treatment, not prevention, in China, a randomized clinical trial on this farm showed that workers who drank it regularly reduced their risk of suffering from multiple episodes of malaria by one-third. For a group of people who were once waylaid by this mosquito-borne disease four or more times per year, the tea is a godsend.
Which is why you may be surprised to learn that the World Health Organization and a majority of malaria researchers are adamantly opposed to it. To be fair, there are compelling reasons not to endorse an herbal tea in a fight against a potentially deadly disease. After all, conventional single-molecule drugs are honed through chemistry to be safer, more specific, and more effective than their herbal progenitors. More critically, malaria experts worry that unregulated use of this tea could cause the malaria parasite to develop resistance to artemisinin drugs.
But the tea’s mere existence and its rapid spread challenges the view that conventional pharmaceuticals are the best and only way of managing Africa’s health care problems. After all, experts in the international aid world talk a lot about sustainability, and nothing is more sustainable than a drug grown on a shrub… The story of artemisinin demonstrates that even the best malaria drugs are worthless if they are not getting to the people who need them. …
Today, although ACTs are heavily subsidized by the international aid community, local clinics frequently run out of stock, and Africans often end up with substandard, ineffective, and sometimes counterfeit medications. Long before ACTs were available in Uganda, rumors of Artemisia’s powers began to spread. In 1998, a German organization called Action for Natural Medicine (Anamed) began distributing seeds and cuttings from Artemisia including a potent hybrid called A3, in 75 different countries. ….
However, no organization I know of has taken things quite as far as the Dutch-owned Wagagai Flower Farm. In 2005, the farm’s owners were struggling because more than one-third of their 1,500 workers were falling ill with malaria each year. The Tororo Botanical Garden in Fort Portal provided Artemisia seeds, and the owners began distributing the tea for free, not for treatment but for prevention of malaria episodes. Soon afterward, a researcher named Patrick Ogwang with the Ugandan Ministry of Health documented a decline of malaria incidence among almost 300 workers drinking the tea, and followed up with the randomized controlled trial demonstrating the tea’s effectiveness. Today, workers like Peter Osire, an irrigation supervisor, tell me it has been years since they had a fever. While the workers are effusive about the tea, malaria experts have taken less kindly to it.
When Ogwang tried to publish the results in Malaria Journal a reviewer largely praised the quality of the science but nixed publication out of concern that use of the tea could render ACTs ineffective. It’s a remarkably patronizing recommendation: that a scientific journal should keep the latest evidence out of the hands of Africans, lest they begin treating themselves. Marcel Hommel, editor in chief of the journal, defends the decision, saying, “It is the responsibility of an editor to avoid publishing papers that promote interventions which could potentially put patients at risk.” Ogwang eventually published his results in a less prestigious journal. …
The tea has become widespread enough that last year the WHO published a statement opposing it for either treatment or prevention of malaria, and an online survey of malaria experts found that 72 percent were opposed to its use in prevention. Their view is that low-dose, persistent use could breed resistance, which would be disastrous. But we’re not talking about pumping pigs full of unnecessary antibiotics. We’re talking about desperate people trying to live normal lives. And, in Wagagai, after years of preventive use, resistance has not sprung up. Ogwang says that may be because the tea, like other herbal products, contains multiple active compounds besides artemisinin. Cinchona bark is still effective after hundreds of years even though chloroquine (a derivative) is not. The Chinese have been using wormwood for more than 1,500 years for a variety of ailments, but the only place where we’ve seen signs of artemisinin resistance is on the Thai-Cambodian border, where conventional ACT artemisinin drugs are used….
Ogwang is now trying to test whether the tea remains effective for prevention even if the artemisinin is eliminated, an idea that sounds crazy but that could eliminate the objection that the tea could stimulate resistance. …Some herbs do have medically active compounds, albeit with varying levels of efficacy, and Africans are choosing to go that route because they know that drug supply won’t be cut off by war or corruption or bureaucratic incompetence. Herbs are not always going to be the right strategy, but the data about these unconventional interventions should be shared and discussed. In the case of malaria,…there have long been indications that using a cruder, cheaper whole-plant extract could potentially be more effective and cheaper..
In a study conducted in rats last year, University of Massachusetts researchers compared a single dose of pure artemisinin to dried whole leaves, and found that the whole plant was better at killing malaria parasites…
Brendan Borrell
Average:
Should Artemisia annua (wormwood) tea be used as a prophylactic in endemic countries?
This expert blog was contributed by Dr. Merlin Willcox, Honorary Secretary of the Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods (RITAM),
in response to the outcome of a poll on MalariaWorld and recent
contributions regarding the use of Artemisia tea as a remedy for
malaria.
As a scientist and medical doctor, I am interested in herbal
medicines for malaria. No one can deny that they have been the source of
the two most important and effective families of antimalarial drugs.
Furthermore many people still rely on various herbal remedies for
treating uncomplicated malaria. Much of my own research has aimed to
investigate these objectively and to find the most effective remedies.
Artemisia annua is a very interesting plant and is the
source of the most powerful antimalarial drug ever discovered,
artemisinin. There are a few clinical trials which even show that it can
be used as an “emergency, first-aid” treatment for malaria in
semi-immune adults. However there are no published clinical trials which
prove effect on the prevention of malaria, and no published clinical
trials which demonstrate effectiveness in young children...
Some of the claims being made recently on the pages of MalariaWorld are questionable. For example: “A "vaccine" against malaria from Africa: ARTAVOL” claims that “The
product has been released after clinical and community trials over 3
years which have demonstrated that if taken regularly during one year it
renders a person immune against malaria.”
No such trials have been published. It is highly unlikely that
taking ANYTHING for one year would render a person “immune” against
malaria. Even the best vaccines have so far failed this test. The only
thing which does seem to give some level of immunity is continued
low-level exposure to malaria parasites. The claim is misleading and
might distract people from proven interventions such as the use of
insecticide-treated mosquito nets.
There are some interesting comments for and against the poll on this subject. I doubt whether use of Artemisia annua
is a significant contributor to drug resistance, because the plant does
contain other antimalarial compounds, and is not widely used in
south-east Asia, where resistance has in fact occurred. However, it is
misleading to say that “no resistance has been observed so far”. How do
you define resistance? The trial of Mueller et al (2004) showed that
many patients experienced a recrudescence of parasites after a treatment
with Artemisia annua tea. This may not be resistance per se, but it does indicate that the tea is not as miraculous as some people claim.
The reason for being cautious about this approach, at least in my
case, is not motivated by pharmaceutical companies’ greed. I have no
conflicts of interest and no involvement with any pharmaceutical
companies. My only interest, as a medical doctor, is to find the best
treatment for patients, to prevent needless deaths from malaria,
particularly in African children.
The fact of the matter is that so far, no published clinical trials have demonstrated that Artemisia annua tea
is effective in the prevention or treatment of malaria in children. A
few small trials have shown some effectiveness in the treatment of
malaria in semi-immune adults. However young children do not have the
same levels of immunity so the treatment may not be so effective in
them. If there really is no other treatment available, it is probably
better than nothing as a “first aid” option while looking for more
effective ACTs. Although it is true that there are fake ACTs, the real
ACTs are the most effective antimalarials currently available. It could
be considered unethical to promote Artemisia teas at the expense of ACTs in young children.
Most of the studies quoted are poorly designed and have fundamental
flaws in their design. For example if there is no control group, how
can you know that the effect is real? If patients are only followed for 2
days instead of 28 days, how can you be sure that the treatment really
prevented malaria? Variations in parasite counts occur commonly even
without treatment.
It is time for us to work together on high-quality scientific
research, to find and develop the most cost-effective treatments and
prophylactics for malaria. I am convinced that there are good treatments
and prophylactics waiting to be discovered and developed from the plant
kingdom. Unfortunately it is difficult to find funding for this sort of
research. The lack of evidence tends to polarise people into two camps –
those “FOR” who enthusiastically promote herbal products with minimal
evidence; and those “AGAINST” who denigrate herbs as being
“unscientific” or “quackery”. It would be better to take a middle path,
using high-quality scientific evidence and research to guide us to
develop truly effective and safe antimalarial treatments and
prophylactics. Meanwhile, when giving guidance to patients and NGOs, we
would be wise to stick to what has actually been proven to work in
high-quality clinical trials.
Reference:
Mueller MS, Runyambo N, Wagner I, Borrmann S, Dietz K, Heide
L.(2004). Randomized controlled trial of a traditional preparation of
Artemisia annua L. (Annual Wormwood) in the treatment of malaria.Trans R
Soc Trop Med Hyg., 98(5):318-321.
Herbal Artemisia cures dengue!
In
the 1970s, there were only about nine countries where dengue fever
existed but now the number is closer to 60. As of 2010 dengue fever is
believed to infect 50 to 100 million people worldwide per year with 1/2
million life-threatening infections There is no cure and no real
treatment.
A major dengue fever outbreak took place in Vanuatu in 2014, with several hundred cases. A female person living in Vanuata was infected by this virus. The infection was classified as dengue by clinical analysis in the hospital where she spent a week. She claims to have recovered after drinking Artemisia annua infusion (origin of the herb : Luxembourg). Subsequently several of her relatives suffered from the same symptoms and were all cured in a few days after tea A annua consumption. The Health Authorities confirm that these people were infected by the dengue virus. This is the first in vivo report on the efficiency of Artemisia annua against dengue. It needs of course to be confirmed by clinical trials in accordance with the WHO protocol.
A literature search shows that several plants were studied in Colombia for their inhibitory effect against the yellow fever virus which is of the same Flavivirus genus as dengue. Essential oil from Artemisia vulgaris like several other plants seems to lead to a direct virus inactivation (R Meneses et al., Annals Clin Microbiol Antimicrobials, 2009, 8 :8). Flavonoids seem to play a major antiviral activity against dengue virus. In a study from Malaysia (K Zandi et al., Virology Journal, 2011, 18 :560), quercetin was 5 times more efficient than other flavonoids like naringin, daidzein, hesperitin. Quercetin showed prophylactic as well as therapeutic action.
Who would like to participate in clinical trials with Artemisia herb ? (lutgenp@gms.lu) We can offer charge free A. annua of different origins, A. afra, A. absinthium, A herba alba and other samples from the same Asteraceae genus. For most of these plants detailed analytical data are available.
A major dengue fever outbreak took place in Vanuatu in 2014, with several hundred cases. A female person living in Vanuata was infected by this virus. The infection was classified as dengue by clinical analysis in the hospital where she spent a week. She claims to have recovered after drinking Artemisia annua infusion (origin of the herb : Luxembourg). Subsequently several of her relatives suffered from the same symptoms and were all cured in a few days after tea A annua consumption. The Health Authorities confirm that these people were infected by the dengue virus. This is the first in vivo report on the efficiency of Artemisia annua against dengue. It needs of course to be confirmed by clinical trials in accordance with the WHO protocol.
A literature search shows that several plants were studied in Colombia for their inhibitory effect against the yellow fever virus which is of the same Flavivirus genus as dengue. Essential oil from Artemisia vulgaris like several other plants seems to lead to a direct virus inactivation (R Meneses et al., Annals Clin Microbiol Antimicrobials, 2009, 8 :8). Flavonoids seem to play a major antiviral activity against dengue virus. In a study from Malaysia (K Zandi et al., Virology Journal, 2011, 18 :560), quercetin was 5 times more efficient than other flavonoids like naringin, daidzein, hesperitin. Quercetin showed prophylactic as well as therapeutic action.
Who would like to participate in clinical trials with Artemisia herb ? (lutgenp@gms.lu) We can offer charge free A. annua of different origins, A. afra, A. absinthium, A herba alba and other samples from the same Asteraceae genus. For most of these plants detailed analytical data are available.
Average:
Artemisia annua tea stronger than chloroquine !
Recent
results obtained at the AlQuds University in partnership with
IFBV-BELHERB from Luxembourg show that freshly prepared infusion of
Artemisia annua is stronger than chloroquine in the inhibition of
beta-hematin (hemozoin) formation. In the infected erythrocyte the
malaria parasite generates large quantities of toxic heme which it has
to render innocuous by polymerizing it into hemozoin. The mechanism of
quinine and all its derivates, chloroquine, amodiaquine operates by
inhibiting this hemozoin crystallization.
Pr Mutaz Akkawi in previous work (Malaria Journal 2012, 11-suppl.p3) has shown that extracts from Salvia officinalis also inhibit hemozoin formation. Extracts from Artemisia sieberi growing in Palestine were shown to have similar properties. More recently the strongest inhibitory effect was displayed by Artemisia annua infusions as used by thousands of people in China, Africa, South America. In this research work it could also be demonstrated that it is essential to prepare fresh infusions rather than working with extracts. It was a surprising discovery by AlQuds University that lyophilized extracts even when kept in hermetic glassware lose their power over weeks. This is the case also for other isolated molecules like artesunate ( S Houzé et al., J Clin Microbiol. Aug 2007, 2734-2736) and may have an impact not only on treatment results but also on in vitro results obtained with aged extracts.
Surprising was also the fact that the beta-hematin inhibitory power of fresh infusions seems to increase with dilution of the infusion. This is eventually in line with recent in vivo results obtained on malaria patients in RDCongo where capsules containing powdered leaves of Artemisia annua from Luxembourg with 0.1 % artemisininin appear to have a higher curing rate than capsules with high artemisinin leaves from A3 hybrid. It is not excluded that for Artemisia annua tea a hormetic effect has to be considered and that a high content in artemisinin is not necessarily the optimum. Or that even Artemisia apiacea and Artemisia afra which contain no or very little artemisinin are strong antimalarials.
The scientific literature is poor in research work dealing with beta-hematin inhibition, except for the papers dealing with quinine and its derivatives chloroquine and amodiaquine. Some extensive work however was done at the University of Baroda, India in 2012 (PhD thesis, Soni Sanketkumar Chandrakant). This research confirms the link between antimalarial properties and beta-hematin inhibition. Quercetin, a flavonoid found in many herbal medicines, has a much lower IC50 than chloroquine for beta-hematin inhibition. The synergy between different flavonoids was extensively studied in this thesis. In all cases did the combination of several flavonoids enhance the antimalarial properties. It is in line with the results of AlQuds where we will concentrate our efforts now on the individual constituents of Artemisia annua and their combinations.
And all this confirms the important work published in December 2012 by Pamela Weathers from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute ( MA Elfawal et al., PLoS One, 2012, 7-12, e52746) : the dried whole plant Artemisia annua as an antimalarial therapy has superior properties when compared with pure artemisinin. The synergistic benefits may derive from the presence of other antimalarial compounds in Artemisia annua.
Mutaz Akkawi
AlQuds University
Pierre Lutgen
Ifbv-Belherb
Pr Mutaz Akkawi in previous work (Malaria Journal 2012, 11-suppl.p3) has shown that extracts from Salvia officinalis also inhibit hemozoin formation. Extracts from Artemisia sieberi growing in Palestine were shown to have similar properties. More recently the strongest inhibitory effect was displayed by Artemisia annua infusions as used by thousands of people in China, Africa, South America. In this research work it could also be demonstrated that it is essential to prepare fresh infusions rather than working with extracts. It was a surprising discovery by AlQuds University that lyophilized extracts even when kept in hermetic glassware lose their power over weeks. This is the case also for other isolated molecules like artesunate ( S Houzé et al., J Clin Microbiol. Aug 2007, 2734-2736) and may have an impact not only on treatment results but also on in vitro results obtained with aged extracts.
Surprising was also the fact that the beta-hematin inhibitory power of fresh infusions seems to increase with dilution of the infusion. This is eventually in line with recent in vivo results obtained on malaria patients in RDCongo where capsules containing powdered leaves of Artemisia annua from Luxembourg with 0.1 % artemisininin appear to have a higher curing rate than capsules with high artemisinin leaves from A3 hybrid. It is not excluded that for Artemisia annua tea a hormetic effect has to be considered and that a high content in artemisinin is not necessarily the optimum. Or that even Artemisia apiacea and Artemisia afra which contain no or very little artemisinin are strong antimalarials.
The scientific literature is poor in research work dealing with beta-hematin inhibition, except for the papers dealing with quinine and its derivatives chloroquine and amodiaquine. Some extensive work however was done at the University of Baroda, India in 2012 (PhD thesis, Soni Sanketkumar Chandrakant). This research confirms the link between antimalarial properties and beta-hematin inhibition. Quercetin, a flavonoid found in many herbal medicines, has a much lower IC50 than chloroquine for beta-hematin inhibition. The synergy between different flavonoids was extensively studied in this thesis. In all cases did the combination of several flavonoids enhance the antimalarial properties. It is in line with the results of AlQuds where we will concentrate our efforts now on the individual constituents of Artemisia annua and their combinations.
And all this confirms the important work published in December 2012 by Pamela Weathers from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute ( MA Elfawal et al., PLoS One, 2012, 7-12, e52746) : the dried whole plant Artemisia annua as an antimalarial therapy has superior properties when compared with pure artemisinin. The synergistic benefits may derive from the presence of other antimalarial compounds in Artemisia annua.
Mutaz Akkawi
AlQuds University
Pierre Lutgen
Ifbv-Belherb
Average:
Tea against ACT: David against Goliath
“ Lors de l'importation d'un médicament commercial, le gouvernement bénéficie de deux sources de revenus: la taxe d'importation et la taxe d'enregistrement. Lorsqu'un médicament de Médecine Naturelle est produit à l'échelle locale, le gouvernement bénéficie tout au plus d'une basse taxe d'enregistrement. Des milliers de microprojets de culture d'armoise annuelle répartis sur son territoire le priverait donc de rentrées fiscales conséquentes. L'exemple des droits de douane perçus sur les moustiquaires et les insecticides illustre l'aberration de certaines pratiques étatiques: en 2000, au Swaziland et au Soudan, le prix d'une moustiquaire imprégnée était respectivement de 45 et 30 US dollars du fait de taxes gouvernementales supérieures à 50% du prix d'achat ;
La collusion de l'OMS et de l'industrie pharmaceutique ne permet pas la nécessaire indépendance d'un tel organisme pour évaluer les alternatives médicamenteuses ou médicinales dans la lutte contre la malaria : l'OMS perçoit au titre de frais administratifs 3% du prix de vente de chaque traitement CoartemB et a instauré avec le laboratoire Novartis producteur de cette association une situation de quasi monopole en lui octroyant la seule qualification sur le marché des ACTs à doses fixes, ce jusqu'à très récemment.
Elle a ainsi joué le rôle de promoteur et d'intermédiaire entre la multinationale et les pays en développement, ralenti la recherche de sources génériques d'ACTs, et généré une tendance à la spéculation et à la hausse des prix contraires aux intérêts des malades. Dans ce contexte, comment l'OMS pourrait-elle manifester un quelconque intérêt pour les plantes médicinales ou mener des recherches en ce domaine, alors qu'elle reçoit autant d'argent de l'industrie en introduisant des arguments contraires en sa faveur? En l'absence d'étude clinique rigoureuse à même de valider l'utilisation d'infusions d'Artemisia annua et au regard des risques avancés par ses détracteurs, sommes-nous en droit de faire l'impasse sur cette alternative thérapeutique lorsqu'on mesure les conditions parfois extrêmes d'isolement des victimes du paludisme dans les régions arides d'Afrique et les forêts tropicales d'Amazonie ?
Le paludisme sévit dans les pays les plus pauvres avec une constante : les difficultés d'accès des structures de soins souvent à des dizaines, des centaines de kilomètres des villages et des médicaments trop chers ou falsifiés. Un traitement même partiel dans son efficacité peut permettre à un individu malade de recouvrer ses forces pour accomplir le périple jusqu'à la plus proche clinique, ce qui représente parfois près de 100 kms comme au Congo ou 3 jours de pirogue en Amazonie.
Dans ses textes et ses intentions, l'Occident consacre « le droit des peuples à disposer d'eux-mêmes ». L'hypocrisie consiste ici à les en déposséder par le truchement du système financier mondial et des institutions internationales au sein desquelles ils ne pèsent pas lourd. »
