Artemisia/malaria

[Guest guest]

Dear Pamela

Thanks for your interesting response. You are absolutely right in saying

that there are lots of plants out there which have the potential to be

useful in malaria, and it would be interesting to investigate whether

resistance only started to develop when drugs with a simplified chemical

structure came into use. On the other hand, without them, what would have

happened in China for example - with over 30 million cases a year only 50

years ago, I shudder to think what the situation would be like now.

It is definitely a subject which arouses a lot of interest and heated

debate. The decision as to whether to take prophylaxis is completely

different from, say, going to somewhere where food hygiene is not great and

not taking sensible precautions, or choosing to smoke in spite of the

evidence. Then it's mainly you who suffers. Before my family got malaria, I

had sauntered off to malarious regions without taking any medication and

took my chances - I was extremely lucky and I now realise it was quite

selfish of me not wanting to put up with the unpleasant side effects. Until

you have a reason to look at the issues, it's easy to forget that malaria is

one of the biggest life-threatening infectious diseases in the world and it

could so easily come back to Europe.

Thanks for the debate everyone!

All the best

Ann