They change the world with a noteless herb
- Updated: May 22, 2024
According to the naming convention of traditional Chinese medicine, the Chinese Pharmacopoeia officially named the extract of Artemisia annua as "artemisinin“.
After artemisinin was formulated into tablets, members of Project 523 increased the dosage for trial administration. After confirming that it was non-toxic, the drug was taken to Gengma, in South China’s Yunnan province, a high-incidence area of cerebral malaria, for clinical trials.
Lu Weidong, director of the former No. 3 Pharmacological Research Office of Yunnan Institute of Materia Medica [Photo/mmcs.org.cn]
The first patient was Yin Cheng, a 17-year-old male, who suffered from high fever and was diagnosed with falciparum malaria. On the 21st, he was admitted to the hospital at 5 pm with a fever. At 5:40 pm, he took 1 gram of artemisinin, and his body temperature dropped. The next day, he was found recovered during ward rounds and was discharged.
After the initial success of the artemisinin clinical trial, Lu Weidong handed the artemisinin over to Li Guoqiao's team, the Project 523 clinical trial team at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, which was working on the treatment of cerebral malaria in Gengma, Yunnan province, at that time. The team continued clinical trials on artemisinin for the treatment of pernicious malaria.
One day, a pregnant woman with cerebral malaria was brought in from a health center. At that time, the mortality rate of cerebral malaria in pregnant women was almost 100 percent. Because the patient was in a semi-comatose state, Li and his colleagues could only break open the patient's teeth and administer artemisinin orally.
More than 50 hours later, the patient woke up. Blood film tests showed that the malaria parasites in the patient had been effectively controlled, marking the first victory in applying artemisinin in the treatment of pernicious falciparum malaria.
Li Guoqiao, director of the former Institute of Tropical Medicine, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine [Photo/mmcs.org.cn]
Artemisinin achieved a cure rate of 100% in treating 18 cases of malignant malaria. It was later proven to be an efficient, fast-acting, and non-toxic new component for combating malignant malaria, with therapeutic effects far exceeding traditional antimalarial drugs such as chloroquine.
Figure: Summary of 18 cases of using artemisinin treating malaria [Photo/mmcs.org.cn]
In 1978, the leading group of Project 523 held an appraisal meeting on scientific research achievements in the treatment of malaria with artemisinin, announcing the birth of artemisinin to the world. Subsequently, China began to focus on the synthesis of artemisinin-based antimalarial drugs for widespread use, taking a winning step in the war against malaria.
Source: CCTV National Memory
