A new drug developed in India and based on a herb discovered in China could prove to be the biggest breakthrough in malaria treatment for a generation, scientists say today.
Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds in Africa. Worldwide, it kills more than a million people every year and 40% of the planet is always at risk. Malarial parasites have steadily become resistant to older treatments.
But researchers from the US, Switzerland, Australia and Britain report in Nature today on a synthetic drug that mimics a Chinese treatment called artemisinin, itself based on the herb sweet wormwood or Artemisia annua. Because the new drug is entirely factory made it could be cheaper, more consistent and produced more swiftly than any herbal extracts.
Safety tests on the drug, nicknamed OZ277, have begun in Britain. Tests for efficacy in malaria patients will begin in January.
The drug is produced by a partnership called Medicines for Malaria Venture. Although the research began in Europe and the US, the drug was developed by Ranbaxy Laboratories, a partner company in India.
The announcement was hailed by UK scientists as a major advance. Artemisia has been known as a herbal remedy for 1,500 years, but its value in malarial treatments was first observed about 30 years ago. Artemisinin, extracted from artemisia, is now in frequent use.
It works by killing the parasite - spread by a malarial mosquito - as it circulates through the human bloodstream. But its manufacture is both difficult and expensive.
"This is because the plant takes about 18 months to grow and then the drug needs to be extracted," said Brian Greenwood of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"This new research has produced a drug very similar to that from plants, but without the time and expense of waiting for the plant to grow and extracting the compound. This should make the drug easier to produce and less expensive."
Sick people cannot work, and often cannot feed themselves. Malaria costs Africa an estimated£6-7bn in lost production, and accounts for two fifths of all public health spending in sub-Saharan Africa. Up to 500 million doses of medicine are needed every year.
ACT, based on artemisinin, is not widely used in Africa because it costs 20 to 30 times as much as the previous drugs. The discovery of a way to directly synthesise this family of compounds could cut production costs and therefore increase the availability of these drugs, and was a major step forward, said Robert Sinden, a parasite expert from Imperial College.
But all scientists sounded a note of caution. Malaria is a clever enemy, and difficult to outwit for long.
"There is always great optimism when a new 'wonder drug' comes along, yet malaria parasites are extremely adept at evolving drug resistance," said Andrew Read, a biologist at Edinburgh University.
"Let's hope the optimism is well placed this time, though history is not on our side.
"But a new drug that works even only in the medium term will save many, many lives and is to be greatly welcomed."
