[Nigeria] Herbal Cream Holds Malaria Vaccine Promise

from The Daily Independent

Stories by Onche Odeh

Science Reporter, Lagos

The quest for a veritable vaccine against malaria may have received a major boost as a herbal dermal preparation made in Nigeria has been suspected to bear the much needed clue.

The product, NIAM Herbal Cream, is a creation of a special project group of the Nigerian Institute of management known as the Nigerian Institute Of Management Initiative Against Malaria (NIAM).

The herbal cream has already been certified safe for use by the National Agency For Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

Dr. Marshal Akinrele, chairman NIAM Foundation board of trustees who spoke on the potentials of the product during an interview in Lagos noted that it acts by repelling the insect vector of the malaria parasite, Mosquitoes away from people who used it on their skin.

According to him, the efficacy of the drug was tested in five different locations in South West Nigeria where malaria is said to be highly endemic.

“We used a special device to suckle the mosquito from the skin of those used for the efficacy study and it was discovered that not a single mosquito perch on the skin of those who applied the cream as against the about 35-100 that were isolated from the skin of those who did not.”

According to Akinrele, the active ingredient of the cream contains an agent that keeps the mosquito at bay, hence the assumption that such could be a starting ground in the quest for a vaccine.

He mentioned that the active ingredient suppresses the production of a particular substance produced by people afflicted with the parasite, which attracts them to mosquitoes.

He, however, admitted that a vaccine against the Plasmodium parasite, the causative agent for malaria has become elusive because of the unequalled ability of the parasite to mutate at rapid intervals.

Meanwhile, a recent research study has indicated that rising temperatures may partly explain increasing cases of malaria in certain regions of Africa.

This is sequel to findings by scientists, which found that temperatures in East African highlands have risen by half a degree Celsius in the last 50 years.

The researchers who wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) said this small rise may have doubled the number of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

The new research relies on a fresh analysis of temperature data for four highland locations in western Kenya, southwestern Uganda, southern Rwanda and northern Burundi.

Climate change has also been proposed as something that could affect the Anopheles mosquitoes, which transmit the malaria parasite, either through higher temperatures or increased rainfall.

The new research integrates temperature changes into a computer programme, which models the mosquito population.

For a half-degree rise, the model predicts that mosquito numbers would rise by between 30 per cent and 100 percent.