Over this century, progress has been made in stamping out the disease only for it to develop resistance to every treatment. Now there is more malaria than in the past and it is being found in areas where it was not seen before. The new Chinese remedy works in a different way from other anti-malaria drugs and it is hoped this means the malaria parasite will find it difficult to develop resistance to it. Malaria bomb Scientists say it works like a bomb. It contains two oxygens which cause the iron wall in the malaria parasite to collapse, producing free radicals which destroy the parasite.
Malaria is full of iron from the red blood cells it feeds on.
Despite Artemisinin being vaunted as possibly the most important anti-malaria drug, it has been around for some time. It was developed during the cultural revolution in China in the late 1960s. Chairman Mao's rejection of Western concepts of medicine led to scientists looking at ancient Chinese herbal remedies. They studied many types of traditional malaria cures before hitting on a recipe for tea made from the Artemesia plant. They distilled the tea and added chemicals to try to isolate the active compound in the plant.