Anti-malarials, from China to Africa

Written byIvan Oransky

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Last month, Merrill Goozner linkurl:reported;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/36878/ on the success of artemisinin, in combination with other drugs, to treat malaria in Thailand and China. Reuters linkurl:reported;http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B155919.htm last week that the Li Guoqian, the first person to use artemisinin in a human trial, now wants to use artemisinin to eradicate malaria on the African island nation of Comoros. (Read Goozner's profile of Li's work linkurl:here;http://www.the-scientist.com/2006/12/1/31/1/ .) As has been discussed on ProMEDmail, Li probably gets the life cycle of infected mosquitoes linkurl:wrong;http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2400:1202:13043317464534780877::NO::F2400_P1202_CHECK_DISPLAY,F2400_P1202_PUB_MAIL_ID:X,35985 (it's 10-14 days, not 30). Commentators also linkurl:point out;http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2400:1202:13043317464534780877::NO::F2400_P1202_CHECK_DISPLAY,F2400_P1202_PUB_MAIL_ID:X,36007 that it's somewhat unrealistic to expect that you can wipe out malaria in any given area, even if it's an island, because of air and sea travel. But the project certainly has the potential to dramatically lower the disease burden.

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