Malaria

A miracle in the making offers hope to millions worldwide
The lives of more than a million children who die each year from malaria could be saved by a new technique for making a drug based on an ancient Chinese herbal remedy first used more than 2,000 years ago. The drug, artemisinin, is based on extracts from the Chinese plant Artemesia annua, or sweet wormwood, which is known to have been used in China as a remedy for malaria fever since at least the second century BC. Taken with other anti-malarial drugs, treatment with artemisinin is said to be almost 100 per cent effective in blocking the life cycle of the malaria parasite within the human body. Read the rest here