Question 24081 — alternative medicines

Summary

Mr. Brahim Hammouche alerts the Minister of Solidarity and Health to the treatment of malaria using a plant from traditional Chinese pharmacopoeia, Artemisia annua. While “natural” medicines are on the rise, the use of this plant is controversial in France. While La Maison de l'artemisia, a French association, claims that the plant, taken in the form of herbal tea, would treat and prevent disease even more effectively than conventional treatments, French doctors and researchers denounce this practice for which evidence of effectiveness is currently lacking. “Artemisia annua” is however well known to scientists and in particular artemisinin, a molecule capable of eliminating the parasite responsible for malaria, which is extracted from it. This discovery also earned the Nobel Prize for Chinese medicine Tu Youyou in 2015. Since then, artemisinin has been an essential compound in anti-malaria drugs, ACTs (therapeutic combinations based on artemisinin), so much so that 28,000 hectares are put into semi-industrial cultivation around the world to supply the pharmaceutical industry. This plant therefore seems to have antimalarial powers. But it is its use in the form of herbal tea which poses a problem for the medical community. Also, he asks him to inform him about the data acquired from science, the recommendations and the prospects for treatment by this galenic form.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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