Agencies Turn to Herbal Drug in Treating Resistant Malaria

Ediacara

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Sun May-09-04 10:16 PM
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Agencies Turn to Herbal Drug in Treating Resistant Malaria | NYT

Agencies Turn to Herbal Drug in Treating Resistant Malaria

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: May 10, 2004

After years of hesitation, world health agencies are racing to acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug that has proved strikingly effective against malaria, one of the leading killers of the poor.

The drug, artemisinin (pronounced are-TEM-is-in-in), is a compound based on qinghaosu, or sweet wormwood. First isolated in 1965 by Chinese military researchers, it cut the death rate by 97 percent in a malaria epidemic in Vietnam in the early 1990's.

It is rapidly replacing quinine derivatives and later drugs against which the disease has evolved into resistant strains.

More at the New York Times

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ret5hd

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Sun May-09-04 10:30 PM
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1. hmmm...wormwood

i wonder if absinthe would help with malaria?

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Raster

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Sun May-09-04 10:47 PM
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2. never tried absinthe... is it available elsewhere?

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Dogmudgeon

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Sun May-09-04 11:04 PM
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3. Nah ... Sweet Wormwood is different

Of course, Absinthe has uses of its own. :)

--bkl

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