Word: artemisinin
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...arrive at makeshift sapphire and ruby mines near Pailin, Cambodia, risking their lives to unearth gems in the landmine-ridden territory. Soon, however, they could be the ones to put millions of others at risk. On the Thai-Cambodian border, a rogue strain of malaria has started to resist artemisinin, the only remaining effective drug in the world's arsenal against malaria's most deadly strain, Plasmodium falciparum. For six decades, malaria drugs like chloroquine and mefloquine have fallen impotent in this Southeast Asian border area, allowing stronger strains to spread to Burma, India and Africa. But this time there...
...core of these programs is Coartem. Developed in 1994, the pill combines artemisinin, a compound derived from a wormwood plant, with lumefantrine, designed by Chinese scientists, which does not kill parasites as quickly but lingers in the blood longer to help prevent resistance. That Coartem was even discovered is remarkable, says Chris Hentschel, CEO of one of Novartis' partners, the Geneva-based nonprofit Medicines for Malaria Venture. "Historically, all the malaria drugs developed were for prevention - that is, drugs for wealthy people going on vacation," Hentschel says. "A cure is for the common good...
...illness and death. Since 2000, all of them have managed a greater than 50% drop in both rates, and all of them have done it through a combination of familiar methods: using long-lasting insecticidal bed nets to prevent mosquito bites; treating the disease with the newer, more effective artemisinin-based combination drug therapy; and spraying homes with insecticide. In these countries, there is little doubt that interventions are working, but the impact doesn't translate to a measurable reduction in global figures because the populations involved are relatively small. Larger countries like Nigeria have been slower to implement prevention...
...global public health system in preparation for the changes that global warming might bring. That means readying societies to deal with heat waves - ensuring that the most vulnerable elderly aren't left on their own - and improving defenses against vector-borne diseases, with anti-malaria nets and medicines like artemisinin. Such preparations will be especially needed in those parts of the developing world - sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia - that will bear the brunt of climate change. But Patz would also like to see public health tackle carbon emissions directly, cutting off global warming at the source. For him, carbon dioxide...
...unlocked. Spectacular technological advances, some stunningly simple, offer practical and low-cost solutions. The most obvious one is insecticide-treated bed nets, now cleverly engineered to last up to five years. The cost to manufacture, ship and distribute each net is $10. A new generation of medicines based on artemisinin, an extract from a traditional Chinese herbal remedy, is remarkably effective in treating cases of the disease, at a cost of about a dollar per treatment...