Malaria

Michaelangelica · February 28, 2008

Seems that instead of drinking gin and tonic (which contains quinine), we should now down absinth...

Artemisia absinthium

I think the Artemisa that is presently in use is the Chinese TCM Artemesia annua. Used in china for about 2,000 years.

Artemisia annua - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think the one used in absinthe liqueur/liquor is Artemisia absinthium, and Artemisia pontica or Roman wormwood. I have grown both, I think. One is a tall 4-5 foot white woody shrub, the other more a crawling ground-cover. (Probably French 'grande' and 'petite' respectively). I never did have the courage to drink/eat any But these days I have a lot of digestive problems so it may be time for me to try it?!

Wiki

The simple maceration of wormwood in alcohol (as called for in absinthe kits) without distillation produces an extremely bitter drink because of the presence of the water-soluble absinthin, one of the most bitter substances known to man

Although absinthe was vilified, no evidence has shown it to be any more dangerous than ordinary liquor. Its psychoactive properties have been much exaggerated.

A revival of absinthe began in the 1990s, when countries in the European Union began to reauthorise its manufacture and sale. As of February 2008, nearly 200 brands of absinthe were being produced in a dozen countries, most notably France, Switzerland, Spain, and the Czech Republic.[4] A few brands are also being produced in the United States.

Absinthe can also contain many other herbs.

SEE

Absinthe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There seems to be some doggy stuff sold as absinthe. Does anyone have any recommendations for an authentic brand?

.

mynah · February 28, 2008

I've grown a few species, including southernwood, and they all have one thing in common: They're bloody bitter! (As is quinine, which cured me of the habit of swallowing tablets dry...)

I find the idea of killing the parasite by using a weedkiller or derivative quite intriguing. Apparently the stuff isn't too toxic if you don't have chloroplasts. The malaria parasite does not photosynthesize, but it does have a former chloroplast rechannelled into service as a feeding organ. (Fascinating critter, but one which, like Hannibal Lecter, you'd rather see on TV or the big screen.)

Michaelangelica · February 29, 2008

I find the idea of killing the parasite by using a weedkiller or derivative quite intriguing. Apparently the stuff isn't too toxic if you don't have chloroplasts. The malaria parasite does not photosynthesize, but it does have a former chloroplast rechannelled into service as a feeding organ. (Fascinating critter, but one which, like Hannibal Lecter, you'd rather see on TV or the big screen.)

LOL

Fascinating the parasite sounds like a real chimera.

So perhaps a combinations of weeds (wormwood) and weed-killer might just be what the doctor ordered?:)

Michaelangelica · May 12, 2008

Effective strategies needed to combat malaria Print E-mail
Written by Macharia Waruingi and Jean Njoroge
ImageThe solution to the malaria problem in Africa lies in engaging local people to find out what they know about malaria and what they are capable of doing in order to control the disease.
May 8, 2008: Kenya is one of the countries that have the best knowledge about malaria in the world today. Paradoxically, it is also one of the countries with the highest number of people who succumb to the disease.
Malaria is a major killer disease in Africa.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that about 1.3 million people died from the disease in 2005. Children and pregnant women are more susceptible to malaria.
About 90 per cent of malaria deaths occur in children under five years of age.
. . .

The two ways of using pyrethrum are dusting or spraying. Cool temperatures enhance the insecticide effect of pyrethrum. Therefore, it is better to spray or dust in late afternoon. The sun also accelerates degradation.

Farmers use pyrethrum to protect their crops from parasites, by applying the crushed powder leaves of plants requiring protection. People burn the uncrushed dried flowers to repel and kill mosquitoes. Some people mix the crushed flowers with sawdust and burn them to chase mosquitoes.
Business Daily Africa - the international window into East African business opportunities - Effective strategies needed to combat malaria

Pyrethrum & Malaria

Kapi Ltd has been manufacturing Pyrethrum based insecticides since 1964. Pyrethrum is a 100% natural and environment friendly insecticide

Pyrethrum is derived from the dried flowers of Chrysanthemum Cinerariaefolium. The name given to the active insecticidal components of the dried flowers is "Pyrethrins". Kenya is the largest producer of Pyrethrum in the world, supplying 90% of the World's demand.

The Pyrethrum flower provides a highly effective protection against mosquitoes, carriers of killer diseases such as Malaria and Yellow Fever. The physiological action of pyrethrins is to inhibit the mosquitoes from biting and causes repellency, immobilisation, paralysis and death.

There is no effective vaccine against Malaria. The only way to avoid it remains avoiding bites. Kapi offers a wide range of products for comprehensive solutions including Mosquito Coils, Sticks, Chips and repellents. These products are complementary to mosquito nets in controlling mosquitoes in the hours between dusk and bedtime, under the net.

Pyrethrum is a complex insecticide with the following outstanding properties:

K A P I LTD - Pyrethrum & Malaria

Michaelangelica · June 6, 2008

Marine Actinomycetes: A New Source of Compounds against the Human Malaria Parasite.

PLoS ONE. 2008;3(6):e2335

Authors: Prudhomme J, McDaniel E, Ponts N, Bertani S, Fenical W, Jensen P, Le Roch K

BACKGROUND: Malaria continues to be a devastating parasitic disease that causes the death of 2 million individuals annually. The increase in multi-drug resistance together with the absence of an efficient vaccine hastens the need for speedy and comprehensive antimalarial drug discovery and development. Throughout history, traditional herbal remedies or natural products have been a reliable source of antimalarial agents, e.g. quinine and artemisinin.

Today, one emerging source of small molecule drug leads is the world's oceans. Included among the source of marine natural products are marine microorganisms such as the recently described actinomycete.

Members of the genus Salinispora have yielded a wealth of new secondary metabolites including salinosporamide A, a molecule currently advancing through clinical trials as an anticancer agent.

Because of the biological activity of metabolites being isolated from marine microorganisms, our group became interested in exploring the potential efficacy of these compounds against the malaria parasite.

METHODS: We screened 80 bacterial crude extracts for their activity against malaria growth. We established that the pure compound, salinosporamide A, produced by the marine actinomycete, Salinispora tropica, shows strong inhibitory activity against the erythrocytic stages of the parasite cycle. Biochemical experiments support the likely inhibition of the parasite 20S proteasome. Crystal structure modeling of salinosporamide A and the parasite catalytic 20S subunit further confirm this hypothesis. Ultimately we showed that salinosporamide A protected mice against deadly malaria infection when administered at an extremely low dosage. CONCLUSION: These findings underline the potential of secondary metabolites, derived from marine microorganisms, to inhibit Plasmodium growth. More specifically, we highlight the effect of proteasome inhibitors such as salinosporamide A on in vitro and in vivo parasite development. Salinosporamide A (NPI-0052) now being advanced to phase I trials for the treatment of refractory multiple myeloma will need to be further explored to evaluate the safety profile for its use against malaria.

PMID: 18523554 [PubMed - in process]

Michaelangelica · August 24, 2008

This acidental finding looks like the beginnings of a new DNA based strategy against Maleria.

Malaria Researchers Identify New Mosquito Virus
the virus that glows in the dark?
ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2008) — Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Malaria Research Institute have identified a previously unknown virus that is infectious to Anopheles gambiae—the mosquito primarily responsible for transmitting malaria.
According to Rasgon, the virus could be potentially altered to kill the mosquito or make An. gambiae incapable of transmitting malaria. To test the concept, the research team successfully used altered AgDNV to express harmless green fluorescent protein in the adult mosquitoes which could be easily spotted under the microscope.

"In theory, we could use this virus to produce a lethal toxin in the mosquito or instruct the mosquito to die after 10 days, which is before it can transmit the malaria parasite to humans. However, these concepts are many years away," said Rasgon

Malaria Researchers Identify New Mosquito Virus

Michaelangelica · December 6, 2008

Malaria is preventable
Sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets can save lives. Houses can be sprayed with insecticides. (How to buy the insecticides when in Africa a person lives with 1 $ /day ?)

It still woriies me that the UN uses incredibly persiatant and long-lasting pesticdes like DDT.

This was interesting from TIME

The Year in Medicine 2008
Malaria: The Global Tally Drops

Good news — well, sort of. Earlier this fall, the World Health Organization cut its global tally of malaria cases in 2006 at least 40% from the previous year's estimate — but that still means there were 247 million cases in 2006. The drop had less to do with a real improvement in health than a simple change in number-crunching.
Once figures from India and elsewhere in Asia were updated, the numbers fell. In November 2007, the U.N. came under fire when it overestimated the number of HIV cases worldwide by more than 6 million, an act that critics say was used to spur donations. No matter how the calculations are done, epidemiologists warn that the math will always be tricky.

Malaria: The Global Tally Drops - The Year in Medicine 2008 - TIME

It even has a nice pic. of a mosquito.

Unfortunately demonising mosquitoes does not hep the planet.

Most varieties just end up as frog food and are harmless to humans.

Ganoderma · December 12, 2008

in tawian they eliminated malaria. just takes millions of liters of DDT and other lovely lotions :phones:

that article is pretty interesting, although makes me nervous.

Michaelangelica · December 29, 2008

The top 10 medical stories of 2008 - 12/24/08 - Houston News - abc13.com

No. 4: Malaria Vaccine

Although scientists have long discovered how malaria is transferred and know how to prevent it, nearly 1 million people die every year from the disease, according to international estimates.

Insect nets and other measures to control the mosquito population that spreads the illness have virtually eradicated the disease in some countries, but dire poverty prevents many of these programs from getting off the ground in the most affected areas.

Finally, Dec. 8, the first results of a malaria vaccine that shows promise hit international news.

Early reports showed the vaccine was more than 50 percent effective in preventing malaria among infants and toddlers, according to reporting by The Associated Press.

Malaria largely strikes the young, first infecting the liver with the parasite and quickly traveling to the whole body causing delirium, fever and chills.

"We are one important step closer to the date when malaria will join diseases such as smallpox and polio, which have been either eliminated or controlled through vaccines," Christian Loucq, director of the nonprofit PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which helped to conduct the study, told Reuters.

The study only focused on two countries in Africa, but a longer and larger study is expected to start in 2009.

Michaelangelica · December 29, 2008

in tawian they eliminated malaria. just takes millions of liters of DDT and other lovely lotions :)

that article is pretty interesting, although makes me nervous.

I think the world expert on mosquitoes lives(lived?) in Taiwan.

Michaelangelica · May 31, 2009

Medicinal plants: Treating malaria with herbal medicines

Source: British Medical Journal in SciDev.Net Weekly Update: 8 - 14 November 2004

More than 1 200 plants are used to treat malaria and fevers, and the two main sources of anti-malarial drugs used today are derived from plants that have been used traditionally for hundreds or thousands of years.

In an article in the British Medical Journal, Merlin L Willcox and Gerard Bodeker provide an overview of research on herbal medicines used to treat malaria. Few trials of anti-malarial plants have been conducted, and studies often do not have enough detail on how medicines are prepared or sufficient data on the efficacy of such plants. Although most studies provide little information on side effects, some patients in one trial stopped the treatment because of minor side effects.

Prioritizing species for future research can be facilitated using the researchers' 'IVmal' index of how widely used different plants are. This allowed the identification of 11 species of plants used to treat malaria in all three tropical regions ¿ Latin America, Africa and Asia. Although such plants may be the best targets for future research, the authors suggest that variations between formulations of individual remedies ¿ rather than the species they are derived from ¿ should also be considered.

Link to full article in the British Medical Journal

NWFP Digest-L

Michaelangelica · December 21, 2009

New Nasal Vaccine Blocks Parasite Transmission to Mosquitoes

ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2009) — An experimental nasally administered malaria vaccine prevented parasite transmission from infected mice to mosquitoes and could play an important role in the fight against human malaria.
. . .
In the study researchers developed a nasal vaccine based on ookinete-surface proteins (OSPs or also known as parasite antigens) and intranasally vaccinated mice infected with malaria. When given in conjunction with the cholera toxin adjuvant vaccinated mice developed a robust antibody response and completely prevented trasmission of the parasite to mosquitoes that were allowed to feed on them after infection

New nasal vaccine blocks parasite transmission to mosquitoes

Ammycin · June 7, 2010

Researchers still developing advance against malaria. No effective vaccine against Malaria.

Some medications help to treat malaria. Fansidar is an antimalarial medication in which prevents the growth and reproduction of parasites.

Michaelangelica · August 1, 2010

Researchers still developing advance against malaria. No effective vaccine against Malaria.
Some medications help to treat malaria. Fansidar is an antimalarial medication in which prevents the growth and reproduction of parasites.

Some vaccines are in human trials I think

The sad part of this is how big pharma has treated the herbal remedies Quinine and Sweet Annie (Artemesia Annua) Both contain several chemicals that act in synergy against the parasite

Artemesia annua was pulled apart, a drug made of one of the chemicals from the herb and this hailed as a possible new cure as there was already resistance to the Quinine.

It took the parasite just four years to develop resistance to Artemesia annua !

Arguably this may not have happened if the whole herb had been used; and therefore, all the synergistic chemicals used.

maikeru · August 1, 2010

It would be much less likely that resistance would've developed. It's a similar thing with antibiotics or HIV cocktail medications. The use of two or more synergistic chemicals/drugs drastically lowers the chances that a pathogen can find a successful adaptation to both if the drugs operate by different mechanisms or in different manners. Nature usually works in mixes and cocktails, with several silver bullets instead of just one.

Michaelangelica · August 2, 2010

Yes i think so too, synergy is one thing plants have over the purist chemists.

Interesting that grapefruit juice is synergistic/ helpful for about 30% of medications

So if you are on an expensive medication . . .?

Michaelangelica · February 25, 2011

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58028/

Fungus fights malaria?

A genetically modified fungus that targets not mosquitoes, but the malaria parasites inside, could be a powerful tool for malaria eradication

[Published 24th February 2011 07:00 PM GMT] Researchers have engineered transgenic fungi that drill into mosquitoes and kill the malaria parasite inside -- the first tool of its kind -- a February 25, 2011 study in Science reported. Used in conjunction with traditional insecticide methods against mosquitoes, experts say this bioinsecticide has the potential to greatly improve malaria eradication efforts. Read more: Fungus fights malaria? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58028/#ixzz1F0RaqYm0

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