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Artemisinin
Artemisinin () and its semisynthetic derivatives are a group of drugs used in the treatment of malaria due to ''Plasmodium falciparum''. It was discovered in 1972 by Tu Youyou, who shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are now standard treatment worldwide for ''P. falciparum'' malaria as well as malaria due to other species of ''Plasmodium''. Artemisinin is extracted from the plant ''Artemisia annua'', sweet wormwood, a herb employed in Chinese traditional medicine. A precursor compound can be produced using a genetically engineered yeast, which is much more efficient than using the plant. Artemisinin and its derivatives are all sesquiterpene lactones containing an unusual peroxide bridge. This endoperoxide 1,2,4-trioxane ring is responsible for their antimalarial properties. Few other natural compounds with such a peroxide bridge are known. Artemisinin and its derivatives have been used for the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artemisia Annua
''Artemisia annua'', also known as sweet wormwood, sweet annie, sweet sagewort, annual mugwort or annual wormwood (), is a common type of wormwood native to temperate Asia, but naturalized in many countries including scattered parts of North America. An extract of ''A. annua'', called artemisinin (or artesunate), is a medication used to treat malaria. Discovery of artemisinin and its antimalarial properties by the Chinese scientist, Tu Youyou, led to award of the 2011 Lasker Prize and 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Description ''Artemisia annua'' belongs to the plant family of ''Asteraceae'' and is an annual short-day plant. Its stem is erect brownish or violet brown. The plant itself is hairless and naturally grows from 30 to 100 cm tall, although in cultivation it is possible for plants to reach a height of 200 cm. The leaves of ''A. annua'' have a length of 3–5 cm and are divided by deep cuts into two or three small leaflets. The intensive aro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Severe Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. Symptoms usually begin ten to fifteen days after being bitten by an infected mosquito. If not properly treated, people may have recurrences of the disease months later. In those who have recently survived an infection, reinfection usually causes milder symptoms. This partial resistance disappears over months to years if the person has no continuing exposure to malaria. Malaria is caused by single-celled microorganisms of the ''Plasmodium'' group. It is spread exclusively through bites of infected ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. The mosquito bite introduces the parasites from the mosquito's saliva into a person's blood. The parasites travel to the liver where they mature and reproduce. Five species of ''Plasmodium'' can infect and be spread by h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncomplicated Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. Symptoms usually begin ten to fifteen days after being bitten by an infected mosquito. If not properly treated, people may have recurrences of the disease months later. In those who have recently survived an infection, reinfection usually causes milder symptoms. This partial resistance disappears over months to years if the person has no continuing exposure to malaria. Malaria is caused by single-celled microorganisms of the ''Plasmodium'' group. It is spread exclusively through bites of infected ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. The mosquito bite introduces the parasites from the mosquito's saliva into a person's blood. The parasites travel to the liver where they mature and reproduce. Five species of ''Plasmodium'' can infect and be sprea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. Symptoms usually begin ten to fifteen days after being bitten by an infected mosquito. If not properly treated, people may have recurrences of the disease months later. In those who have recently survived an infection, reinfection usually causes milder symptoms. This partial resistance disappears over months to years if the person has no continuing exposure to malaria. Malaria is caused by single-celled microorganisms of the ''Plasmodium'' group. It is spread exclusively through bites of infected ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. The mosquito bite introduces the parasites from the mosquito's saliva into a person's blood. The parasites travel to the liver where they mature and reproduce. Five species of ''Plasmodium'' can infect and be spread by h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dihydroartemisinin/piperaquine
Piperaquine/dihydroartemisinin (DHA/PPQ), sold under the brand name Eurartesim among others, is a fixed dose combination medication used in the treatment of malaria. It is a combination of piperaquine and dihydroartemisinin. Specifically it is used for malaria of the '' P. falciparum'' and '' P. vivax'' types. It is taken by mouth. Side effects are uncommon. Concerns include the possibility of QT prolongation. Versions are available for use in children. Use in early pregnancy is not recommended. The two medications work by different mechanisms. Piperaquine/dihydroartemisinin was approved for medical use in Europe in 2011. The combination is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is commercially available in Africa and Asia. It has been used to treat more than 4.5million people as of 2017. Pharmacology Dihydroartemisinin (also known as dihydroqinghaosu, artenimol or DHA) is a drug used to treat malaria. Dihydroartemisinin is the active metabolite of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tu Youyou
Tu Youyou (; born 30 December 1930) is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malariologist. She discovered artemisinin (also known as , ) and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, a breakthrough in twentieth-century tropical medicine, saving millions of lives in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. For her work, Tu received the 2011 Lasker Award in clinical medicine and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura. Tu is the first Chinese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine and the first female citizen of the People's Republic of China to receive a Nobel Prize in any category. She is also the first Chinese person to receive the Lasker Award. Tu was born, educated and carried out her research exclusively in China. Early life Tu was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, on 30 December 1930. She attended Xiaoshi Middle School for junior high school and the first year of high school, before tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antimalarial Medication
Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target groups, young children and pregnant women. As of 2018, modern treatments, including for severe malaria, continued to depend on therapies deriving historically from quinine and artesunate, both parenteral (injectable) drugs, expanding from there into the many classes of available modern drugs. Incidence and distribution of the disease ("malaria burden") is expected to remain high, globally, for many years to come; moreover, known antimalarial drugs have repeatedly been observed to elicit resistance in the malaria parasite—including for combination therapies featuring artemisinin, a drug of last resort, where resistance has now been observed in Southeast Asia. As such, the needs for new antimalarial agents and new strategies of treatment (e.g., new combin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Traditional Medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action. Medicine in traditional China encompassed a range of sometimes competing health and healing practices, folk beliefs, literati theory and Confucian philosophy, herbal remedies, food, diet, exercise, medical specializations, and schools of thought. In the early twentieth century, Chinese cultural and political modernizers worked to eliminate traditional practices as backward and unscientific. Traditional practitioners then selected elements of philosophy and practice and organized them into what they called "Chinese medicine" (''Zhongyi''). In the 1950s, the Chinese government sponsored the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, and in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, promoted Chinese medicine as inexpensive a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasmodium Falciparum
''Plasmodium falciparum'' is a Unicellular organism, unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of ''Plasmodium'' that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female ''Anopheles'' mosquito and causes the disease's most dangerous form, falciparum malaria. It is responsible for around 50% of all malaria cases. ''P. falciparum'' is therefore regarded as the deadliest parasite in humans. It is also associated with the development of blood cancer (Burkitt's lymphoma) and is classified as a List of IARC Group 2A carcinogens, Group 2A (probable) carcinogen. The species originated from the malarial parasite ''Laverania'' found in gorillas, around 10,000 years ago. Alphonse Laveran was the first to identify the parasite in 1880, and named it ''Oscillaria malariae''. Ronald Ross discovered its transmission by mosquito in 1897. Giovanni Battista Grassi elucidated the complete transmission from a female Anopheles, anopheline mosquit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artemether/lumefantrine
Artemether/lumefantrine, sold under the trade name Coartem among others, is a combination of the two medications artemether and lumefantrine. It is used to treat malaria caused by ''Plasmodium falciparum'' that is not treatable with chloroquine. It is not typically used to prevent malaria. It is taken by mouth. Common side effects include muscle and joint pains, fever, loss of appetite, and headache. Serious side effects include prolongation of the QT interval. While not well studied, it appears to be safe for use in pregnancy. The dose does not need changing in those with mild or moderate kidney or liver problems. The combination came into medical use in 1992. They were both developed in China. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is not available as a generic medication. Medical uses The combination is an effective and well-tolerated malaria treatment, providing high cure rates even in areas of multi-drug resistance. Side effects Coartem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasmodium
''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a vertebrate host during a blood meal. Parasites grow within a vertebrate body tissue (often the liver) before entering the bloodstream to infect red blood cells. The ensuing destruction of host red blood cells can result in malaria. During this infection, some parasites are picked up by a blood-feeding insect (mosquitoes in majority cases), continuing the life cycle. ''Plasmodium'' is a member of the phylum Apicomplexa, a large group of parasitic eukaryotes. Within Apicomplexa, ''Plasmodium'' is in the order Haemosporida and family Plasmodiidae. Over 200 species of ''Plasmodium'' have been described, many of which have been subdivided into 14 subgenera based on parasite morphology and host range. Evolutionary relationships among different ''Pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artesunate/mefloquine
Artesunate/mefloquine is a medication used to treat malaria. It is a fixed dose combination of artesunate and mefloquine. Specifically it is recommended to treat uncomplicated falciparum malaria. It is taken by mouth. Side effects are similar to the medications being used separately. Use is recommended as it decreases the possibility of either medications being used alone. Dose forms appropriate for children are also available. Artesunate/mefloquine came into commercial use in 2008. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is approved for medical use in Brazil, India, and Malaysia. It is not commercially available in the United States. Medical uses Artesunate/mefloquine is a recommended treatment in Southeast Asia while in Africa artesunate/amodiaquine, artemether/lumefantrine, artesunate/sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine are often preferred. See also * Dihydroartemisinin/piperaquine Piperaquine/dihydroartemisinin (DHA/PPQ), sold under the brand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
