Herbal Medicine Fights Malaria

A growing number of African countries where drug-resistant malaria is spreading are turning to artemisinin, an extract from sweet wormwood that has been used as herbal medicine in China for more than 1,000 years.

An estimated 30 million malaria cases will be treated in 2004 with artemisinin-combination therapy, or ACT. Demand is expected to rise to 180 million by 2006, according to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which provides poor countries with the drug.

"Implementation of ACT in Africa is an enormous challenge to pharmaceutical companies, policy makers, and the international health community," Mary Ettling, USAID malaria team leader said.

"Obtaining supplies of ACT is only a small part of the job. The tough part is distributing the drug to all communities, and ensuring that it is used correctly by patients," Ettling said.

USAID has supported safety and efficacy testing of ACT in Africa since 1998. Support increased recently, as the drug was found safe and effective when used by children.

As drug resistant malaria spread, USAID quadrupled funding to fight the disease from $22 million in 1998 to $83 million in 2004. In the past three years, the U.S. government contributed $623 million to the Global Fund, and is giving up to $547 million this year.

Malaria kills one million people worldwide each year, making it the world's third deadliest infectious disease. An estimated 300 to 500 million people are ill with malaria annually, while new AIDS and tuberculosis infections attack 5.3 million and 8.8 million, respectively, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

In Africa, malaria is most common in children and pregnant women. USAID also supports the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, which can reduce overall child mortality by as much as 25-30 percent. The Agency is also supporting the development of a malaria vaccine that is being field tested in Kenya and Mali.

Malaria was eliminated in the United States by 1951 and in Europe by the 1970s. Eradication efforts by WHO, USAID, and other groups greatly reduced cases of malaria in tropical and sub-tropical countries by the 1980s.

But the disease is making a comeback. The number of cases reported in the past two decades is four times that of the previous 20 years. Three years ago an epidemic in Burundi afflicted half of the country's 6.5 million people and killed 13,000 of them. An outbreak in Ethiopia last year caused some 15 million cases, triple the usual number. And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, last year more than 4 million new cases of malaria were registered.