MALARIA: AN OVERVIEW WITH HERBAL TREATMENT

The success of the antimalarial drug quinine and the discovery of artemisinin, the most potent antimalarial drug, both from plant sources, has led to the study of plants as antimalarial agents. The ethnopharmacological approach for the search of new antimalarial agents from plant sources has proved to be more predictive. In India the National Malaria Eradication Programme (NMEP), started in 1958, achieved near complete disappearance of the disease in 1960s.

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However, due to the development of insecticide resistance among mosquitoes & other factors, it staged a comeback in the mild 1970s& continues to prevail in endemic/subendemic proportions in different areas. In the present review attempts have been made to understand various aspects of malaria in relation with its cause, epidemiology, and mechanism of action with diverse chemical structure possessing antimalarial activity against different malarial parasites.

Malaria is a one of the most common, serious, complex and refractory health problems facing humanity this century1and also a most common causes of death in the world today. It is a major parasitic disease of the tropics, affecting around 300-500 million people of which more than one year, 90% of which are in Africa. It is estimated that there are between 1 million to 3 million deaths every year due to malaria In Africa alone, more than 1 million children under the age of 5 years die from malaria each year. It is a serious infectious disease caused by the plasmodium parasite and transmitted by female mosquito.Globally, malaria is once again threating mankind, No vaccine to prevent malaria is available and using quinoline derivatives (eg. Chloroquine) to cure people having malaria is becoming much less effective due to the parasites rapidly increasing resistance to such standard drugs. An ancient Chinese herbal remedy against malaria has led relatively to the discovery of a new class of endoperoxide antimalarial drugs: natural lactone trioxane artemisinin (qinghaosu), and semi-synthetic ether and ester derivatives of trioxanes are now used broadly and effectively in many areas of the world where malaria is endemic, various recent explorations of the tiandamental organic chemistry of such peroxide drugs have led to a surprising chemical generalisation: the peroxide bond in such 1,2,4-trioxanes is often quite robust.

Four species of plasmodium can produce the disease in its various forms.

1) Plasmodium falciparum 2) Plasmodium ovale

3) Plasmodium vivax 4) Plasmodium malariae

Plasmodium falciparum is the most widespread & dangerous of the four, untreated. It can lead to fatal cerebral malaria.
Plasmodium falciparum malaria infection during pregnancy contributes to low birth weight (LBW) -one of the greatest risks for neonatal mortality.

Malaria parasites are transmitted from one person to another by the female anopheles mosquito. The males do not transmit the disease as they feed only on plant juices.

The whole  34 pages article is available for download at Downloads section of Farmavita.Net.

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