Published 2015-10-11 07:03
Chronicle. Every minute a child dies of malaria. It may sound a lot. But fifteen years ago died twice as many children, two minute, the same disease.
Every minute a child dies of malaria. It may sound a lot. But fifteen years ago died twice as many children, two minute, the same disease.
The halving depend largely on the medicine artemisinin, whose leading author woman, Tu Youyou, a week was awarded half the Nobel Prize in Medicine .
Tu Youyou and her colleagues was based on traditional Chinese medicine, and in her own words of the Nobel Prize in recognition of such tradition.
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At least every six hours, killed a rhinoceros by poachers. The horns are ground into powder and sold for high amounts. This trade is so widespread that the rhinos are threatened by extinction. It depends on the purchasing power of people in Southeast Asia, including China, imagines that the powder has medicinal properties, including allegedly raise the potency. While these myths go back on traditional Chinese medicine.
In a publication by Li Shizhen from the 1500s are described, for example, the powdered rhinoceros horn will help against diseases including fever, cramping, fever, rheumatism, gout, headache, hallucinations, vomiting and food poisoning.
Similar ancient “wisdom” also has tips on other rare animal species can be used against various ailments, such as parts of the tiger, the eggs of sea turtles, fins from sharks , swim bladders from fish …
Tu Youyou was part of a secret project that was initiated by Mao Zedong in the late 1960s. The purpose was to help China’s ally North Vietnam, during the Vietnam War when many soldiers died of malaria. Although Chinese civilian population was suffering from the disease, especially in the South, and especially children. In interviews, Tu Youyou described how she saw many seriously ill and dying children when she worked half a year in the district of Hainan.
With an education in both traditional Chinese medicine and the modern chemistry and pharmacognosy looking Tu Youyou in the ancient annals. Then she tested several hundred traditional herbal extract with modern chemical analysis methods.
A single herb of the two hundred tested proved effective against malaria – sweet wormwood, Artemisia annua.
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With additional chemical enhancements succeeded Tu Youyou more than tenfold malörtens efficiency.
During the 1970s, there was a new drug to cure a few thousand malaria ill patients in China.
In 1979 came the first article in English (but without Tu Youyous name). Eventually, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and a couple of big pharmaceutical company with the train. Only in 2006 were medicine widely available.
And today, several million people have been cured, largely because of the Tu Youyous combination of traditional herbal medicine and modern chemistry.
But as always the resistance is a threat to effective medicines. In parts of Cambodia is already apparent that the parasite has become more resistant to artemisinin. The World Health Organization recommends the day always two different medicines to combine.
In the United States dna researcher Jay Keasling is developing a method for producing the active ingredient in a biological way, in Instead of picking and wipe the entire wormwood. In this way, production can be both cheaper and more efficient, and the drug could be even more tailored to cure the disease and prevent resistance.
Tu Youyou are a woman and do not have a doctorate. She worked in secrecy and anonymity at great personal sacrifice. She started from the millennial sources and have helped many millions of people have been rescued to life.
That makes her the Nobel Prize for one of the most fascinating ever.
This is not to say that all traditional Chinese medicine is good. Very contrary, really, really bad. It is ineffective for patients and additionally devastating for rhinos and other endangered species.
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