What role does Artemisia’s play in the fight against Malaria

Artemisia afra is a bush native to Southeast Africa, and used for centuries by what some may call traditional healers to supposedly prevent and treat malaria and other parasitic diseases.

Every year, over 400,000 people die from Malaria. In fact, 380,000 people have lost their lives from Malaria in 2018 according to the WHO, unable to afford the drug treatment, unable to locate the drug treatment, in Africa, one out of two medicines is counterfeit, or simply due to drug resistance.

Though the safety of consuming this plant had already been proven, she teamed up with a doctor who formally worked for the WHO and carried out six clinical studies on Artemisia annua of Chinese origin, and on Artemisia afra of East African origins.

Their finding? For one, these two plants contain at least twenty anti-malarial molecules, making their simultaneous consumption treat malaria faster and more effectively than the current artemisinin-based treatment. For another, after four months in a village carrying out her treatment, the number of people affected by the disease decreased by 66%.

While the WHO has recommended against the use of Artemisia, and while many pharmaceutical lobbyists have come up against her, Dr Lucile’s plantations have produced 2.6 million treatments, and as many people have been treated by Artemisia, not to mention, it does not induce resistance, it allows people to heal themselves cheaply and in a safe manner, and it contributes to the development of a small local business.

While Biosylx does not yet play a major role in the advocacy for Artemisia as a key ingredient in the fight against malaria, we have taken preliminary steps to mimic some of the initiatives taken by the original grassroots movement. In sharing this, we hope to create more awareness amongst our peers, and perhaps inspire future collaborations on this great cause.