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Helping to combat malaria in Gambian
villages
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When Pageant first started working with
schools in The Gambia, we became aware that a major reason for
children not attending was sickness in the family, mainly malaria.
Pageant therefore began providing mosquito nets for poor families,
which reduced the chances of contacting malaria from a mosquito
bite, but did nothing to help those who did become infected. Following a lead from Pageant member
Elizabeth Fisher, we investigated a 'herbal tea', which is effective
against malaria.
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The plant Artemisia annua is native to China and has been used
there as a cure
for malaria for 2000 years. Its leaves and flowers contain
artemisinin, which has proven anti-malarial activity. This was
isolated from the plant in China in 1971, and is now marketed as an
anti-malarial drug. However, the traditional use in China has been
in the form of a tea prepared from the leaves. This seemed like the
ideal solution for poor communities in The Gambia unable to afford
the drug form, but the
big problem was that Artemisia annua was not suitable for
cultivation in hot climates. The significant breakthrough was the
development of a new cultivar called 'Anamed' which is able to grow
well in hot weather and still retain its anti-malarial properties.
Elizabeth Fisher has sadly died since she introduced
this idea to us, but we feel that the Aremisia Project, which
was very dear to her heart, will make a fitting memorial to her.
Start of the
Artemisia Project (December 2006)
Anamed International is a German based
humanitarian network of development workers, doctors, nurses and
healers for the exchange of medical knowledge and experience in the
Tropics. They developed the cultivar Artemisia annua Anamed A-3 which
is able to grow in most tropical climates, and is currently under
cultivation in over 70 countries. It contains not only artemisinin, but several
other substances effective in the treatment of malaria. Tea made from
the leaves has been shown to be just as effective in treating
malaria as artemisinin extracted from the plant. The tea also
strengthens the immune system of AIDS patients and helps in the
treatment of several other diseases. (see
further information) Anamed now
produce a starter kit containing seeds, cultivation instructions etc.
However, the seeds are not cheap and they need to be grown carefully, especially during the early stages of
growth. We considered this might be beyond the capabilities of the
normal village gardeners. If the early growing stages could be
carried out by knowledgeable growers in controlled conditions, the
young plants could then be given to the villages to cultivate and
theoretically grown in every village so the leaves could be
harvested providing an inexpensive treatment for malaria.
We realised that before this could happen
trials would have to be carried out both to see that the plants would
grow and that the benefits attributed to the plants were real. We
were delighted to find that the research department of the Gambian
National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) was already running
trials and that the plants it had produced showed a good yield of
the active ingredient. The leader of the programme had fallen ill
with malaria during the summer, had taken the 'tea' made from the
leaves and had recovered much more quickly than usual. The people
living in the villages surrounding NARI were already starting to ask
for leaves for their own use - so, the problem was, how to get it
into the villages.
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Kemo and Pippa arrive at
NARI |
Ian and Mr Darboe
discussing the trial plants |
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Kemo joins in the discussion |
Discussing how to take
cuttings |
Pippa and Ian visited NARI and were shown
round the laboratory and the experimental planting area by Mr Lamin
Jobe, Programme Leader and Acting Director of Research and Pest
Management, and Mr Momodou LK Darboe, who is the leader of the
Artemisia annua 'Anamed' growing programme. The photos show Ian,
Kemo and Mr Darboe discussing the plants - these plants were well
established and cuttings from them had already been taken.
Following our discussions Pageant agreed to finance a trial programme for five villages.
This programme
would entail NARI obtaining and planting fresh seed and producing 64
good small plants for each village. These would be planted in an
eight by eight square at roughly 1 metre spacing in each village
garden - NARI would supervise the planting, explain how to care for
the plants and then return to the villages some 3 months later to
show the villagers how to take cuttings, pick and store the leaves
and generally keep the garden thriving.
Gambian National Agricultural Research
Institute (NARI) started training villagers in the cultivation
of Artemisia plants. Kemo accompanied Mr Darboe of NARI on some of
these sessions. As usual there were more ladies than men, because it
is the women who usually look after the gardens.
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sign announcing the
training programme |
Mr Darboe talking to
villagers |
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Mr Darboe with some
villagers and one of the Artemisia plants |
village women with an
Artemisia plant |
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villagers gather under a
tree
for a training session |
Artemisia plants being
delivered to a village |
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village gardens where
the Artemisia plants will be grown |
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Village Artemisia Plantations
(February & November 2008) |
top of
page >> |
Previously we reported that
we hoped to set up a scheme where Gambian villages could benefit
directly from plants grown to combat malaria. In February 2008 we
saw the first village trials of the Artemisia plants at Bakalarr and
the adjacent villages, where small plots had been selected to grow
them under different conditions to see what worked best. Both NARI
and the villagers were very enthusiastic about the results and we
are hoping to extend the scheme to five more villages in the near
future. When we visited NARI itself we saw the flourishing artemisia
'nursery' and were able to give the Institute a further batch of
seeds to continue their work.
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Ian and Wandifa with
Kebba, a NARI field worker,
at a Bakalarr trial plantation |
In November 2008, following assurances of
success and confidence from the Bakalarr group gardeners, we were
able to give NARI the funding for the second group of five villages.
This time we asked that the chosen villages should be situated some
distance up the river, to enable the benefit to be spread further
through the country areas.
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Progress
on the 'anti malaria' village gardens (April 2009) |
top of
page >> |
As mentioned in our
April trip blog,
we called in at NARI on our way past
one day, to discuss the latest progress with the Artemisia plant
project.
We were keen to find out how far the NARI staff had progressed with
taking
plants to the second batch of five villages - had they even started,
we
wondered? We were assured that they had indeed taken plants to the
five
selected villages, all of them well up-country. These included Jarreng
(which
is one of the worst malarial-affected villages in the country and
where we
have several sponsored children) and Kanikunda, which is Wandifa's
original
home village. The NARI staff said that plants had been delivered and
established at all five villages and that all were doing well apart
from
those at Kanikunda, which needed replacing. We said that we would be travelling to both Jarreng and
Kanikunda
during the next week and would be able to see progress for
ourselves. We
were shown some very healthy nursery plants, some ready for
transporting out
to farms and villages - Kanikunda, we were told, would have some of
these
during the next week or two.
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Artemisia seedlings and
young plants ready
to go to the villages |
A few days later we visited Jarreng and were shown some of the best
Artemisia plants that we had seen anywhere. They were planted out in
the
walled garden of the Jarreng Skills Centre - at the time we saw them
they
were surrounded by other, smaller vegetable plants. The head
gardener,
who took us round the plantation, explained that these plants would
be
cleared from around each Artemisia bush before they were allowed to
go to
seed. This would enable the small Artemisia seedlings to be seen
easily and
to grow unhindered until ready for transplanting. The women tending
the
garden understood the importance of caring for the plants and were
now
waiting for NARI to come to explain the harvesting and preparation
of the
harvested leaves for making the 'tea' that would be used to treat
malaria.
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Artemisia plants at
Jarreng |
On our way back to Banjul from Jarreng we visited Kanikunda, and
here the
story was very different. The villagers had wanted to plant the
Artemisia
in a properly fenced mixed garden in a similar manner to that done
at
Jarreng. However, the NARI staff had advised them NOT to do this, but to
plant
them in a small plot on their own. Unfortunately the plot chosen was
not
well fenced and the goats had managed to get in and had eaten all
the
plants! So, when the replacement plants arrive, the Kanikunda
villagers are
going to plant them in the well fenced garden, even if it means they
are
mixed in with other plants. We felt that, for relatively small scale
production as is envisaged for these village gardens, the system of
mixed
planting appears to be working well enough.
We did not visit the other three villages that had received the
Artemisia
this time, but understood from NARI that they were all progressing
well and
were at a similar stage to those we saw at Jarreng. We are now
waiting to hear from these villages that they have proceeded to the
next stage of the programme - i.e. the explanation of the harvesting
and preparation of the final anti-malarial 'tea'.
Pageant now has an Artemisia Ambassador.
Lamin Njie is a young man from Abuko village. He studied at school
to Grade 12 and got good marks, particularly in Agricultural
Science. He is very keen on 'growing things' and has the reputation
in his community of having 'green fingers'. He was highly
recommended to us by Wandifa and Abdoulie as being both hard-working
and trustworthy. Pageant is paying for him to be trained in all
aspects of Artemisia annua cultivation at Gambia's National
Agricultural Research Institute (NARI). With Pageant's support, he
will soon be embarking on a Gambia-wide mission to encourage the
cultivation of Artemisia annua by village communities, giving them a
batch of plants as well as tuition on germination, cultivation,
harvesting, seed collection and the use of the plant in treating
malaria. This will mean that villagers should have a completely
self-sustaining means of producing their own Artemisia, without the
need to obtain fresh supplies of seedlings each season. We have
promised him guaranteed employment for one year and will see how
things are progressing at the end of that time. If the programme -
and the Artemisia - is flourishing in more village gardens, and the
people in those villages are able to benefit from having a locally
produced, inexpensive malaria remedy, we will continue to employ and
support Lamin in his work. We have explained this to him and he is
very keen to succeed.
Help us with the Artemisia Project
Our earlier programme cost approximately
£2,500 for each group of five villages to grow their own Artemisia
annua. Pageant's funding of Lamin Njie's work as Artemisia
Ambassador has cost £2,000 so far, with ongoing costs as the
programme develops. If you would like to make a specific donation for
our Artemisia Project and help to defeat Africa's main killer
disease, then please send a cheque to Pippa Howard. Old School, Worthing Road,
Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex. RH13 9DT, UK. Please write 'Artemisia'
on the back of the cheque. Also if you are a UK taxpayer, please
send us a GiftAid
form to allow us to reclaim UK Tax.
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PDF
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form - an extra
25%
from the taxman |
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Alternatively you can
donate online using your credit or debit card.
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Click the 'Donate' button to make a
donation to Pageant's Aretemisia Project. This takes you to a Virgin Money Giving
page, where you should click on 'Donate now'. Donations will be
kept separate and used only for the Artemisia Project. |
You might also like to consider helping the
Artemisia Project through Pageant's Ethical Gift Scheme. Just
£20 will purchase 100 Artemisia
plants, sufficient to start two village plantations. See our
Ethical Gifts
page and our
Gift of Artemisia for more
information.
Links
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