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Those Herbal Extracts
By Nana Dadzie Ghansah
Long before antibiotics, antivirals, and vaccines, herbal preparations were the mainstay of how infectious ailments were treated in many societies around the world. That these diseases still had high mortality rates does not necessarily mean these herbs were useless. It is quite possible that the dosing was wrong or the indications not thought out.
These practices have persisted in lots of places around the world and with the outbreak of every new disease come calls to try out herbal preparations.
For people on the African continent, two of the most well-known herbal preparations are those from the Neem tree (Azardirachta indica) and the Artemisia plant.
The Neem tree, a plant indigenous to the India sub-continent, was introduced to Africa in the 19th century. The Artemisia plant has several species but two are of interest. Artemisia annua is indigenous to China and also grows in Madagascar. Known as “Qing hao” in China, it produces the compound Artemisinin, which is a potent anti-malarial. Artemisia afra grows indigenously in East and South Africa and has been used medicinally in those areas for centuries. The active compounds in that species have not been clearly studied.
Though extracts from artemisia had been used as medicine in China for centuries, the compound Artemisinin was…
