The Ills We Know
While other pathogens-du-jour try to figure out how to be fruitful and multiply in the face of human antibodies and pharmaceutical antibiotics, some of these bugs have been around the block a time or two, and pretty well have survival figured out--their survival at our expense, and too often, the youngest among us go first.
One we don't hear much about in the temperate zones (under past climate regimes, at least) is the mosquito-borne malaria. It still kills a million people every year, 700,000 of them under the age of five. That's not good.
What's worse is that "the world's last effective drug to treat malaria, artemisinin, is in danger of losing its potency because of improper use, putting millions of lives in peril, the World Health Organization warned yesterday. The WHO urged drug companies to stop selling the drug in its misused form."
Turns out, once again, that plants come to the rescue--one called artemisia, from China.
Compared with other antimalaria drugs, artemisinin works much faster, killing the parasites and staying in the blood stream for only four to eight hours. The other drugs used in combination attack whatever parasites have evaded artemisinin. But when artemisinin is used by itself, those parasites that stay alive can develop resistance.For poor people needing treatment, the single-drug artemisinin pill is more attractive economically, costing roughly half the price of the combination drugs, which are sold for $1 to $2 per course of treatment. Much cheaper still is chloroquine, which costs about a dime for the entire treatment, but only cures roughly half of malaria cases in many countries because of widespread resistance. link
So it ultimately comes down to hard choices for the poor. Think of what one day's worth of war costs could do for a million children. Nah. Don't think about it.
Comments
Excellent topic. Treatable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis kill the majority of people in the world; however, if you were to ask the general public of what's the biggest killer, they would probably say AIDS because of its publicity.
We currently have medicines for the biggest killers, but it's the distribution of drugs that's lacking. Distribution is also the problem of starvation in the world, rather than the lack of production.
To lose potency is super scary because then we'd have the dual disaster of ineffective medicine combined with lack of distribution, so everyone loses.
I'm really interested in determining whether the public or private sector or what combination best tackles these problems. Please share any thoughts as I will do the same if I can.
Posted by: Jim | January 27, 2006 10:22 AM
The poster, Jim, might like to read an excellent book on this subject called Mountains Beyond Mountains. It is about a remarkable doctor who is giving his life to work with the poorest in Haiti, and also working on TB and malaria worldwide by ceaselessly flying back and forth. The book is a fantastic read, and the doctor (I can't recall his name) is an incredible human being. If it were fiction one would say he was unbelievable. He is working with NGO's and governments and the UN to get things done.
Posted by: Kathy Barron | January 28, 2006 12:35 AM
Malaria used to be endemic in the United States, and with the wrong set of conditions, we could get it back. Cities as far north as Philadelphia had malaria problems, as well as mosquito-born yellow fever epidemics in the mid 1800's. I think our success in controlling infectious diseases is a temporary thing.
Posted by: Rebecca Clayton | January 28, 2006 4:24 PM
I am a veterinarian who has used the Wormwood extract for anti-cancer effect in horses and in dogs. I have found it very effective in melanomas in horses- (grey horse tumors). In dogs, I have used it with scattered success in dog osteoscarcomas. In dogs, the oral form apparently fails to be absorbed after 10 days or so so I used the injectable form and it worked some better. In dogs, I always inject holotransferin at the same time giving oral Art. In my hands, this has been effective in about 10% of the dogs. Certainlt mixed results.
Posted by: Dean Essex | January 29, 2006 2:22 PM