Antimalarial drug

Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) - A nonprofit foundation created to discover, develop and deliver new antimalarial drugs through effective public-private partnerships. Their vision is a world in which affordable drugs will help eliminate the devastating effects of malaria and help protect the children, pregnant women, and vulnerable workers of developing countries from this terrible disease.

Fake and substandard drugs in Africa by immoral medical companies is a serious worry. Malaria continues to be a serious concern. It affects more than 100 countries and about 40percent of the worlds population. It causes between 300 and 500 million infections and about a million deaths each year. It is estimated that malaria kills a child every 30 seconds in spite of the disease being entirely preventable and curable. At the eighth World Health Assembly meeting in 1955, it was resolved to begin a worldwide eradication campaign of malaria. Though the campaign was eventually abandoned and considered a failure, it registered resounding successes in eradicating malaria from large regions across the globe. The successful application of insecticides and the effectiveness of antimalarial treatments formed the cornerstones of the programme.

GENEVA -- The World Health Organization (WHO) today publishes guidelines for the cultivation and collection of Artemisia annua L, a Chinese traditional medicinal plant which is the source of artemisinin, used to produce the most effective medicines for malaria. The guidelines will contribute to improving the quality of Artemisia annua L to further develop artemisinin-based medicines, and help ensure a sustainable supply to meet market demand.

South African scientists in a global alliance against malaria are achieving breakthroughs in part based on traditional treatments. GRAEME ADDISON reports DRUG development early in the 21st century is guided by our growing knowledge of molecules and the human genome that is, by the mechanics of the atom and the life forces of DNA. This differs radically from a century ago, when medications sprang from hit-or-miss guesswork about processes in the body.

A totally new malaria cure, based on an Asian medicinal herb, is to be presented at a congress in Yaound, Cameroon, on Monday and to the African market in 2006. The medicine, costing just 1 euro per adult patient and 50 cent per child, is described as a tremendous breakthrough that could save millions of lives, by its producers.

Recent malaria research so intriguing that the scientists who conducted it did not initially believe their findings could aid efforts to develop drugs or vaccines against the deadliest form of the disease.

A six-dose course of the combination of two drugs - artemether and lumefantrine (coartum or Riamet)- is a highly effective treatment for malaria in the areas of Africa where resistance to frequently used malaria drugs is common, according to two randomised controlled studies published in the April 22nd issue of The Lancet.

The global community is committed to cutting by half the number of deaths worldwide from malaria by 2010. In Africa, progress has been slow towards achieving the objectives set by the continents leaders in April 2000 to help reach this goal.

A 42.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Institute for OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the United States, will create a powerful new approach to developing a more affordable, accessible cure for malaria, which kills more than a million children each year.

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.