Artemisia to be grown in southern Afica for malaria drug

Used traditionally by the Chinese for 2000 years, Artemisia annua is a plant now attracting very wide attention. The World Health Organisation has just published a 60-page monograph explaining how to grow and harvest the plant and how to extract its active ingredients.

The active principles of artemisia are invaluable for the production of artemisin-based combination treatments (ACTs), which the WHO recommends to combat quinine-resistant malaria. Forty percent of the world's population is exposed to this form of malaria, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where 90 percent of the deaths attributable to malaria occur.

Historically artemisia was only cultivated in China, which alone could not satisfy growing global requirements for the medicinal plant. Hence there have been periods of shortages that have alarmed the WHO and national health authorities around the world. To remedy this, the WHO and drug manufacturers have encouraged artemisia cultivation to be extended to other areas of the world, including South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, which are to start growing it. Some farmers have welcomed the opportunity of growing artemisia as an alternative to tobacco.

But these developments have not been without their problems. Artemisia annua requires over 6 months of cultivation, after which the extraction, processing and production of the final product takes a further 2 to 5 months. Any mistake can ruin the harvest or lead to the harvesting of a plant low in active principles. And even then, a poorly coordinated production process can ruin months of effort.

This is why the WHO has just published its guidelines on the cultivation and processing of the herb. It describes in precise detail how to go about growing artemisia, how to plan production of its essential products and put in place all the technical know-how required to extract artemisin from the dried leaves.

Afrol