Artemisinin

Artemisinin Latest News

A new study has found that any place with heavy artemisinin use and favourable conditions could become a new hotspot for resistance, and that in some parts of Africa, the frequency of resistance markers is gradually increasing.

About Artemisinin

• It is an antimalarial drug derived from the sweet wormwood plant, Artemisia annua. 
  • The process involves drying the leaves and using a solvent to extract the active ingredient. 
• Discovery of artemisinin’s therapeutic benefits in the 1970s was a breakthrough in malaria treatment. 
• It offered a new option when the malaria parasite was becoming resistant to older drugs like chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine.
• Artemisinin is effective against all the malaria-causing protozoal organisms in the genus Plasmodium. 
• It mainly targets the malaria parasite during the blood stage, disrupting the parasite’s ability to replicate within red blood cells.
• It helps significantly reduce the parasites but doesn’t stay in the body for a long time, being eliminated within hours.
• It is usually partnered with another drug that eliminates the remaining parasites over a longer period of time.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as the go-to treatment for Plasmodium falciparum malaria. 
• Today, there are several derivatives of artemisinin, including artesunate and artemether, that are used in the treatment of malaria.
  • Artesunate is highly effective at treating severe malaria as it is the only artemisinin derivative that can be given via intravenous injection.

Source: TH

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