|
Muti plants tested for Aids role |
|
|
CAPTOWN, January 26, 2006 (IOL) - Can African muti plants be used to treat Aids patients? This is the subject of a ground-breaking international collaboration between medical researchers from KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Town and the United States.
They plan to conduct extensive tests on the healing value of two species of African traditional medicine plants. The first part of the R26-million project - funded via the United States government - involves a team of American and local medical experts who will monitor human safety and clinical research at Edendale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg for Aids patients treated with extracts of the cancer bush (Sutherlandia frutescens).
Further pre-clinical studies will be done on African wormwood (Artemisia Afra) at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine in Durban and other local research centres for possible use in treating Aids, tuberculosis and cervicalncer. Both plants have been used widely in South Africa for generations to treat a variety of sicknesses. The study is being sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health. It will involve traditional healers from KwaZulu-Natal as well as medical scientists and researchers from several local and American universities.
The project leader at Edendale Hospital is Dr Douglas Wilson, while Dr Nceba Gqaleni, who is the Deputy Dean of the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, will lead the provincial team. The overall project leader is University of Missouri biochemistry professor Bill Folk. Other local researchers include Dr James Hartzell and Dr Mannie Moodley from Durban and Prof Quinton Johnson, head of herbal science at the University of the Western Cape, who will work with academics from the University of Cape Town, the South African Medical Research Council and the universities of Georgetown and Texas. An official announcement on the project is expected early next month, when project leaders visit Edendale Hospital.
Meanwhile, academics at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine in Durban will also participate in a separate international research project to search for an HIV vaccine. This initiative is a collaborative effort led by the Centre for HIV/Aids Vaccine Immunology, based at Duke University in the US.
Three other South African research bodies will also be involved: The National Institute for Communicable Diseases, the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and Aurum Health Research, a subsidiary of Anglo-Gold Health.
According to the US Embassy public affairs office in Pretoria, the observational study will involve collecting medical samples from people who have been very recently infected by HIV to look for "possible protective immune responses".
Similar work will be done in Malawi, Gambia, Tanzania and Uganda as part of a seven-year project costing more than $300-million (R1,8-billion).
|
Health 
