{"id":78162,"date":"2025-12-16T13:33:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=78162"},"modified":"2025-12-16T13:58:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:28:04","slug":"artemisinin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/artemisinin\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemisinin"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Artemisinin Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Artemisinin<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>antimalarial drug<\/b> <b>derived from<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>sweet wormwood plant<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Artemisia annua.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The process involves drying the leaves and using a solvent to extract the active ingredient.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Discovery of artemisinin&#8217;s therapeutic benefits<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the <\/span><b>1970s <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was a <\/span><b>breakthrough in malaria treatment.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It offered a new option when the malaria parasite was becoming resistant to older drugs like chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artemisinin is <\/span><b>effective against all the malaria-causing protozoal organisms <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the<\/span><b> genus Plasmodium.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It mainly <\/span><b>targets the malaria parasite during the blood stage,<\/b> <b>disrupting <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the <\/span><b>parasite\u2019s ability to replicate within red blood cells.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It helps significantly <\/span><b>reduce the parasites but doesn&#8217;t stay in the body for a long time<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, being eliminated within hours.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>usually partnered with another drug<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that eliminates the remaining parasites over a longer period of time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> World Health Organization<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (WHO) <\/span><b>recommends artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as the go-to treatment <\/span><b>for Plasmodium falciparum malaria.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, there are<\/span><b> several derivatives of artemisinin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including <\/span><b>artesunate and artemether, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that are used in the treatment of malaria.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\">Artesunate is highly effective at treating severe malaria <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as it is the only artemisinin derivative that can be given via intravenous injection.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/artemisinin-resistance-africa-kelch13-mutations-southeast-asia-malaria-control\/article70397728.ece#google_vignette\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artemisinin is an antimalarial drug derived from the sweet wormwood plant, Artemisia annua. Read more about Artemisinin Drug, Discovery, Targets, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":78152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4232,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-78162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-artemisinin","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}