Herbal treatments for malaria and dengue

[Peter Clements]

There are reports of a herbal treatment for malaria, being artemisinin/sweet wormwood. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1364080.stm
Has anyone heard of herbal treatments for dengue fever? These two diseases are a real problem for anyone intending to live in the tropics.

[christopher]

Peter,

Thanks for that! I'm going to see if I can source some seed for it.

I have never had malaria, and with 20 years here, I have been very lucky. Part of it is that the last 17 years I have lived three klicks from a population center, and malaria has missed me. Also never had cholera, which swept through Belize late 80s.

I have, however, had dengue, and it is the only time in my life where I was indifferent to the thought of living or dieing. I just didn't care one way or the other, and I though to myself, well, if I die, all of this pain stops, and that's okay.... I was utterly wiped out for five days, high fever, bones and joints fell like I was breaking into pieces, ugh, and I had the retroorbital pain. It took me two months to get strong again. The matress was drenched with sweat, and I had hot/cold/hot/cold sensations, and pain, pain, pain, pain. The only thing worse than laying and breathing awake was trying to sleep. It was the worst, most unpleasant time to be inside my body in my whole life.

I wouldn't wish dengue on anyone.

Thank you for that info! That looks likea plant specie we should be cultivating. Will keep my eyes/ears open to source some from anywhere.

Thank you!

Christopher


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[Peter Clements]

Hi Christopher,
Glad I could share that info with you, where it can be put to good use. That's what I love about permaculture- no matter how times you use information, it never wears out! Regarding herbal remedies, I have come across a theory of pest control that says don't try to wipe the pest out, otherwise it will become resistant- instead suppress it to a low level where it becomes less of a problem, thus avoiding resistance. Here in Australia we use tea tree oil to control disease in potting mix, based on this principle of suppression.

[sab]

I had dengue too in Manila. It took about a year before I could walk without joint pain again. My son was three when he got it. He was crying, "My legs don't work." We got through it without medication mainly because we didn't realise till we saw a documentary where it was called break-bone fever when we realised what we'd had.

[Jez]

Thanks Peter, that's very useful information!


Here's a couple more articles on this topic from a few days and months ago (one is the same development you are alerting us to Peter):


artemisinin/sweet wormwood

Mosquitoes are fussy eaters

[SueinWA]

Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever:

Since the Chinese seem to often have a better grip on herbal treatments, I was surfing around and found an alternative medicine site that said "Using traditional Chinese diagnostics and herb therapy [for DHF], the results are better than using modern drug therapy".

The treatments are at the following site, but it appears that you would need the assistance of a good Chinese herbalist:

http://alternativehealing.org/dengue_fe ... rmulae.htm

Sue

[forest]

In my nursing days, I used to work on Cape York, Thursday Island and often travelled to PNG with the flying doctor for clinics. We saw all those tropical diseases like Hanson's Disease (leprosy), malaria, TB etc. The thing that made the most difference in the long term, was the use of mosquito nets. When they started using them the incidence of passing the disease on was cut right back.

[christopher]

Mozzie nets do cut back on the rate of infection of the diseases like malaria and dengue, which are transmitted via mosquito.

Also, reducing the amount of litter, like old cans, bottles, tires, discarded rubber boots, etc, will reduce the populatio of mosquitos, therefore reducing their ability to act as a vector for these mosquito borne diseases.

Part of the poblem here is that in a preindustrial society, all the tamale wrappers and containers were made of material which will break down when disposed of. There would be no "trash" because the clay bowl, the leaf for tamale wrapping, the wood for the bowl, or other local rpoduct would be made out of a material that could return to the earth pretty easily. With plastics, there is no breakdown.... and the containers, not beiong porous, will hold water and create habitat for mosquito breeding.

So this creates a problem, increased access to disposable goods, increased creation of habitat for mosquitos and subsequently increased rates of infection by population of mosquitos that has exploded.

The urual methods of dealing with mosquitos is to spray, usually malathion here, though they were still using DDT in the 1980s when I first got here. They go into a house, spray the walls and under the bed, and believe that this miraculously eliminates mosquitos. It does kill some, but it also kills the spiders and flies and wasps, and birds, and eventually, the mosquitos take not notice because they have become immune.

There is an entrenched interest in that method of dealing with the problem. Lots of rich countries will "donate" sprayer trucks, train technicians (often young, uneducaqted, inexperienced and, after training, brainwashed into thinking the chemicals are "safe"), send in experts, etc, but noone wants to buy impoverished people mosquito nets.....

Forest, you are right. Starting from a place of prevention is better than dealing with the symptoms. An ounce of prevention is worth a tonne of cure!

C

[SueinWA]

When I was looking at the malaria & DHF sites, they all talked about how the local people (in poor countries where mosquitoes are rampant) keep filling the storm/rain drains with debris, causing them to back up, pool water and, of course, breed mosquitoes.

I wonder if anyone ever EXPLAINS to them WHY they shouldn't do this, or do they just tell them not to? Maybe that would be too simple for any government... :cry:

Sue

[bazman]

I spent two years in PNG, and a lot of people get malaria up that way, there are three main stains from memory, one gets into your brain and is really bad news, I didn't really worry about it to much as I got bitten all the time, anywhere I would go I got bitten, Rebecca on the other hand never got bitten, we would go to a BBQ and I would get bitten 20 times and she got none.

So guess who got malaria? Bec was really sick for a few weeks, but found the treatment worse, it was a two week treatment, she was sick as a dog for the whole time.

I don't have any idea why I didn't get it, might have had something to do with all the drugs and booze, heh. :lol: Expat life in Port Moresby was pretty wild.