Madagascar goes herbal in finding coronavirus cure

Madagascar has sought a solution to the coronavirus disease in herbal antidotes.

According to Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, he unveiled an unproven cure for COVID-19 that is derived from a plant, Artemisia annua.

The remedy, named COVID-ORGANICS, is effective against the virus, Rajoelina said, speaking in Malagasy at the launch of the product in the capital Antananarivo. The product strengthens the body’s immune system, he added.

Rajoelina shared images of the product on his social media page: bottles of a dark amber liquid with the label COVID-ORGANICS and Tisane Bio. The word tisane refers to herbal teas.

The principal ingredient in the concoction is derived from Artemisia annua or sweet wormwood, a green leafy plant that emits a striking odour. Dried leaves from the plant are considered to have medicinal properties in Madagascar. But there is no evidence to show it actually works against COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has claimed more than 165,000 lives and infected almost 2.5 million people across the world.

Herbal remedies made from A. annua leaves are often touted as a cure for malaria. But its use against malaria is controversial. “WHO does not recommend the use of A. annua plant material, in any form, including tea, for the treatment or the prevention of malaria,” a 2012 position paper from the World Health Organization said. The WHO’s office for Traditional and Complementary Medicine had not responded to questions about its use for COVID-19 by the time this article was published. However, artemisinin, a compound isolated from the A. annua plant is used in combination with other drugs as a treatment for malaria.

“There is as far as I know no evidence that the artemisinins can treat COVID-19,” Arjen M. Dondorp, a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford said in an email. “There are anecdotal reports that artesunate was tried in China when the outbreak was rampant there, and that the drug had no clear clinical benefit. As far as I know, no official clinical trials with artesunate to evaluate whether artemisinins are beneficial in COVID-19 have been registered.” Artesunate is derived from artemisinin.

The product also bears the stamp of the Malagasy Institute for Applied Research (IMRA), where the purported cure was developed.

Madagascar has a low number of confirmed COVID-19 cases — just 121 out of a population of 26 million — and no reported deaths as of April 20, Mongabay reports.