Reuters Reports That Artepharm Global's Artequick Eradicates Malaria On The East Africa Island Of Moheli

Main Category: Tropical Diseases
Also Included In: Immune System / Vaccines
Article Date: 19 Jul 2010 - 3:00 PDT

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Artepharm Global Corp. (OTCBB:ARGC) reports that at the 5th Pan-African malaria conference, held in Nairobi in early November 2009, it was announced that malaria has been eliminated on the East Africa Comoros island of Moheli, with a population of 36,000. This was done with the aid of a comprehensive Chinese-assisted Artequick® treatment program that was administered and run by Artepharm Global's partner - Artepharm Co., a modern PRC China-based pharmaceutical company and as reported by Reuters...

In a laboratory in China's southern city of Guangzhou, scientists are enhancing the rare sweet wormwood shrub, from which artemisinin -- the best drug to fight malaria -- is derived. Artepharm Co.'s intent is to improve and use the drug patented as Artequick, as a uniquely Chinese weapon to fight malaria in Africa, where it still kills one child every 30 seconds. The Chinese-backed eradication program on the island of Moheli has proven to be a huge success. Professor Li Guoqiao of Artepharm Co., is spearheading the project on Moheli, which belongs to the Comoros group of islands at the northern mouth of the Mozambique Channel. In mid-November 2007, he launched a "mass drug administration" exercise on the island. Its entire population of 36,000 had to take two courses of anti-malarial drugs to flush the parasite from their bodies -- on day one and on day 40. The rationale was that while mosquitoes pass the parasite from person to person, they are merely "vectors" and not hosts. The real reservoir of the disease is people, and many carry the malaria parasite in their bodies without even showing symptoms.

"The key is to eradicate the source, which is in people. Without the source, the vectors are harmless," said Li Guoqiao. "The results were startling. While the parasite carrier rate in Moheli ranged from 5 to 94 percent from village to village before the exercise, that fell to 1 percent or less from January 2008 and has stayed around that figure since. "Before, 70 to 80 percent of hospital patients were being treated for malaria. After that, you hardly find any," Li said. Comoros now bars anyone from entering Moheli unless they take a course of Artequick, the antimalarial drug, which is a mix of artemisinin, primaquine and pyrimethamine. The Comoros government has asked Beijing to roll out the same program in two of its larger islands, Grande Comore and Anjouan, with a total population of 760,000. Li said Beijing supported the idea in principle and that funding is being worked out.

Source:
Artepharm Global

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