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An Artemisia Plant growing in a filed.
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KeyNote
According to Madagascar's President,
artemisia annua, an african herbal, based drug is a good advancement towards the fightting with covid-19 disease.
Andry Rajoelina, President of
Madagascar, had praising the benefits of Artemisia annua, a herbal, in his long
address on television last weekend, and
declare it as highly effective treatment against covid-19 pandemic. It is also increasing its grip in other
African countries. Although, World Health Organization raised the question it
must be tested for its efficacy and adverse side effect before approval.
Referring to his one-and-half hour
long speech, an Artemisia plant, a bottle of syrup made up of Artemisia herbal,
and packages of covid-organics, the branded Artemisia products are all placed
near to him to promote it as treatment of coronavirus disease.
Artemisia based injections will go
under clinical trial from the next week, said Rajoelina, urging that any kind of criticism on herbal-based
treatment must be stop, according to representative of RFI’s in Antananarivo.
The President urged people to continue
following measures on regular basis to put a break on covid-19 pandemic pace.
The major portion of the address had covered the plant “Artemisia. In addition,
He made two announcements: production of plant, Artemisia, on large scale, and
setting up a factory to make medicine form upcoming month.
This plant has capacity to deal with
plenty of diseases. If we don’t rush fast, the competitors will overpass us,
Said Rajoelina, as reported by Laetitia Bezain, a correspondent of RFI.
Africa’s Covid-19 Treatment
The ruling parties of other African
countries have showed their interest in Artemisia to defeat covid-19 disease.
John Magufuli, President of Tanzania,
said he approached the Madagascar government and sent an airplane to pick up
medicine made up of Artemisia.
Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of
Congo Brazzaville, has confirmed that they would import artemisa too and follow
the measure of covid-organic treatment after having video conference with
Rajoelina, as tweeted bygovernment spokesperson Thierry Moungalla.
Senegal on 24th April
placed its first order, revealed byMadagascar’s leader through his social media post
Drilling Down Artemisia
The Madagascar’s government is not
only single player to drill down the benefits of the plant Artemisia as an
effective and quick remedy against covid-19 disease but some other players are
too participating to test the efficacy of this vaccine or medicine-For instance
Germany’s Max PlanckInstitute of Colloids and Interfaces and US based company ArtemiLife Inc both are working in collaboration on
plant extract and its derivatives to determine its efficacy and adverse side
effect against novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2.
The studies carried out in Denmark and
Germany have considered the same plant as cultivated and processed in
Madagascar’s Land-artemisia annua. The supplies used in the test are provided
by ArtemLife Inc, situated in Delaware, claims that it has fields cultivating
artemisia outside Lexington, Kentucky.
ArtemiLife is promoting two products
containing artemisia annua-tea and coffee. The company suggests that the
consumers use these products couple of times in a day-maximizing benefit and
keep shield active.
The prices of two products ArtemCafe
and ArtemiTea are 91 euros and 73 euros respectively, which are usable for a
month that is 30-days. The company encourages all customers to register their
interest on its website because the products are still in development phase,
and yet not available to sale.
The company adds, these products have
no capacity to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent from any disease. ArtemLife
further highlights that their claims about Artemisia annua are not backed by
the US Food and Drug Administration.
Centuries-old malaria Treatment
This Artemisia plant has been used
successfully as treatment for Malaria infection since century. In 340 BC, it
was discovered that this plant had antimalarial features as part of traditional
Chinese medicine, says Zhou Yiging, an expert at Institute of Microbiology and
Epidemiology-a sub unit of Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
Zhou’s Research conducted in 1970 led
to the plant’s efficacy against the mosquito-borne ailment.
Artemisia was picked up for further
scrambling from the list of other herbs and conventional medicines used to
treat malaria as investigated by experts.
The project 523 was the first step
towards the clinical testing of Artemisia herb by Chinese government to finds
out its antimalarial features.
Later, scientists cracked the
molecular structure of the Artemisia and explore more derivatives, and finally succeeded
in developing first Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) for malaria,
known as Coartem.
To get different actions using ACT
therapy, artemisinin was combined with another active component for the same
treatment.
According to World Health
Organization, ACT is the most effective antimalarial drug available today to
fight against the mosquito-borne disease-malaria.
The Role of Artemisia in preventing HIV and SARS
The researchers have not restricted
their studies of Artemisia only for combatting malaria, but open other
directions as well to find out solution to stop covid-19 virus.
A paper, prepared at Leiden University
and Basel University, published in the Journal of Ethno-pharmacology
investigate Artemisia tea infusion and their activity in fightingagainst HIV.
In July 2005, an article was published
by Chinese researchers based on the uses of herbal extract as an antiviral drug
in Treatment ofSevere Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a respiratory sick caused by
coronavirus.
The research including Artemisia among
other four selected herbals extract conducted by experts at different
institutions and companies in Beijing published in the Antiviral Research
journal, that could be focused as an candidate for producing a drug that deals
with SARS.
Threat for the Pharmaceutical Industry
Fears over Drug Resistance Doubts over
Drug Resistance
WHO in its guidance on malaria treatment informs
against using artemisinin as an oral monotherapy. This guideline plays
significant role in the development of drug resistance to artemisinin as a
treatment.
The use of Artemisia plant is
prohibited within France. The HealthMinister of France says that no evidence of controlled clinical trials
that proves its efficacy and effectiveness. The National Agency for the Safety
of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) has acted to ban products produced from
Artemisia.
In contrast to it, French non-government
organizations like La Maison de I’Artemisia promoting the herbal use as malaria
treatment, claiming “the plant can save millions of lives”. The NGO pays
attention on Sub-Saharan African countries, promoting the use of Artemisia as
tea infusion, although notifies people from outside malaria endemic against
taking it.
Malaria and covid-19 not the same
The treatment of mosquito-borne
ill-malaria with the use of plant Artemisia is clearly beneficial but some
questions are still answerable about the exact nature of treatment. Its
successful use in fighting against malaria doesn’t provide the same guarantee
in case of dealing covid-19.
The African Union Block it was in
touch with the Madagascar’s government with idea to have access all technical
data regarding the use of Artemisia in terms of safety and efficiency for
treating coronavirus pandemic, according to a statement.
It was decided that member state would
supply all necessarily data with detail to African union regarding the herbal
remedy, the AU said on Tuesday.
The AU added, The Africa Centres for
Disease Control and Prevention would further review and analyze collected the
scientific data to determine its safety and efficacy.
Frank van der Kooy, the mentor of
research on Artemisia and treatment of HIV at Leiden University and the
University of Basel, shared with RFI that the lack of fund has made it
difficult for us to continue work on it, while research on its use as medicine
deal with coronavirus-SARS-CoV-2 must be interpreted cautiously.
At the moment we are not sure that
Artemisia will be effective in dealing with Covid-19 but it needs to pass
through clinical trials, which demands funds in turn, said van der kooy, who
currently works at North-West University in South Africa.
The WHO has not ignored aspect of
possible use of Artemisia for treatment of Covid-19, but it should be faces the
clinical trial to identify its efficacy and adverse side effects.