The new leaf that promises to change lives
Joseph Kahura stands on the edge of a roadside and surveys the coffee farm he manages as a group of men work the land with hoes alongside small, Christmas tree-like plants.
The crop, an ancient Chinese herb called artemisia, is being grown on the plantation for the first time and could potentially affect the lives of millions of Africans.
Mr Kahura hopes it will become an alternative cash crop for Kenyan farmers, particularly coffee growers, who have seen the value of their once prized commodity plummet to all-time lows. Health officials, on the other hand, deem artemisia crucial to tackling malaria and saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of African children each year.
The herb provides a key ingredient for new, highly effective anti-malarial drugs known as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). It has been grown mostly in China and Vietnam, but a serious supply shortage threatens efforts to increase distribution of ACTs, causing health officials and pharmaceutical companies to seek to diversify its cultivation. And a tiny Kenyan company, East African Botanicals, may offer an answer.
For eight years, EAB and African Artemisia, its Tanzanian sister company, struggled to grow artemisia with little demand and virtually no resources. Now, however, they are garnering the attention of pharmaceutical companies, the World Health Organisation and the US Agency for International Development.
The group has just signed a supply agreement with Novartis, the main producer of ACTs, for its 2005 crop the first of its kind for the Swiss giant outside of Asia.
In response to the sudden interest, EAB is hastily trying to beef up its operations, looking for farmers to grow its seedlings and seeking investment of $5m-$7m to construct a plant to extract the artemisinin from the herb's dry leaves.
Philip McLellan, EAB managing director, says the company has secured the promise of funds from private investors to build the plant and plans to increase production from 200 hectares to about 1,500 in 2005.
A hectare yields up to four tons of artemisia dry leaf, which contains about 1 per cent artemisinin when grown in east Africa higher than the content of much of the herb grown in Asia, experts say.
“The market is screaming out for supply,” Mr McLellan says. “Now we are getting a market, we are able to offer farmers less risk.”
The company contracts large and small-scale farmers in northern Tanzania and Kenya to cultivate the plant, which takes six to nine months to grow.
USAid, the World Health Organisation and Techno-Serve, a US non-governmental organisation, are also “very close” to an agreement with EAB to launch a project to assist farmers to grow the herb, officials say. “We feel it is vitally important to increase the supply of quality artemisinin-based drugs for vulnerable populations in Africa,” says Matthew Lynch, a malaria adviser official with USAid, which is planning to provide $1.2m to the project in 2005. Mr Kahura, who manages Gulmarg Estate, which is owned by Sasini, one of Kenya's largest tea and coffee producers, says his company agreed to plant nine hectares of artemisia in September in a bid to diversify away from coffee.
“We heard about the crop and was told it was not hard to grow and decided to see if we can make a profit from it,” he says.
Since 2001, 40 countries, including 20 African nations, have agreed to switch from old drugs to which malaria has become resistant to ACTs.
The WHO reached an agreement in 2001 with Novartis under which the pharmaceutical group would provide its ACT, Co-Artem, to the WHO at cost price for public sector use in malaria-endemic developing countries.
“We want artemisia grown in Africa as soon as possible, but we want a strong market and market growth in the future,” says Allan Schapira, a malaria expert at the WHO. In the short term, the addition to existing supplies will be relatively minor, perhaps 10 per cent of the volume from Asia, he says.
“But the data we have looked at so far indicates the yield is very good in east Africa,” he adds, “so there is potential for east Africa to play an important role.”
拯救生命的新草药
约瑟夫?卡胡拉（Joseph Kahura）站在公路边俯瞰着他所经营的咖啡田，一群男人在形似圣诞树的低矮植物旁持锄耕作。
这种名叫艾蒿的古老中草药作物，是首次在这里种植，它可能会给数百万非洲人的生命带来影响。
卡胡拉希望艾蒿成为可供肯尼亚农民、特别是咖啡种植者的一种可替代的经济作物。曾被他们珍视为重要商品的咖啡，价格已经跌至有史以来的最低点。另一方面，卫生官员则认为艾蒿是一种极为重要的药材，它可以治疗疟疾，从而每年拯救数十万非洲儿童的生命。
这种草药中含有新型高效抗疟疾药物的关键成分，这类药物通称青蒿素复方制剂（ACTs）。艾蒿主要生长在中国和越南，但是供应的严重短缺对推广使用ACTs的工作构成威胁，这迫使卫生官员和制药公司想方设法扩大艾蒿的种植。“东非植物制剂”（EAB）这家规模很小的肯尼亚公司，或许提供了一种解决方案。
8年来，“东非植物制剂”和坦桑尼亚的兄弟公司“非洲艾蒿”（African Artemisia）在需求量甚小、几乎没有任何资源的条件下努力种植艾蒿。不过现在制药公司、世界卫生组织以及美国国际开发署对它们正越来越重视。
这个集团最近刚与ACTs主要生产企业诺华（Novartis）公司签订供货合同，将该集团2005年首次种植的此类作物供应给这家大型瑞士制药公司。
针对外界突然萌发的兴趣，“东非植物制剂”正匆匆扩大生产规模，物色种植幼苗的农民，同时还在寻找500到700万美元的投资，来开办一家从干艾蒿叶中提取青蒿素的工厂。
“东非植物制剂”执行董事菲利普?麦克莱伦（Philip McLellan）说，已有私人投资者承诺向该公司提供资金用于开办工厂，公司还计划于2005年将种植面积从200公顷增加到1500公顷。
专家表示，东非种植的艾蒿每亩可产4吨干叶，其中包含1％的青蒿素，比亚洲同等重量艾蒿中青蒿素的含量要高。
“市场上对艾蒿需求很高，”麦克莱伦说，“我们正在开拓市场，因而能够降低农民的风险。”
公司与坦桑尼亚北部和肯尼亚小农户和大农户签合同，让他们种植生长期为6至9个月的艾蒿。
有官员表示，美国国际开发署、世界卫生组织以及一个美国非政府组织Techno-Serve也很快就会与“东非植物制剂”签订协议，开展一项帮助农民种植草药的计划。美国国际开发署疟疾防治指导官员（Matthew Lynch）马修?林奇说：“我们认识到，对于非洲面临疟疾威胁的人民来说，增加高效青蒿素药物的供应量极为重要。”该署正计划于2005年向这一计划提供120万美元。卡胡拉负责经营Gulmarg农场，这个农场属肯尼亚最大的茶叶和咖啡企业Sanini所有。卡胡拉说，他的公司同意在9月份种植9公顷艾蒿，用于使种植的作物多样化，而不再仅限于咖啡。
“我们听说了这种作物，而且据说种植并不困难，因此就决定试试看我们是否能从中获利，”卡胡拉说。
2001年以来，包括20个非洲国家在内的共40个国家已经同意放弃陈旧的疟疾药品转而采用青蒿素复合制剂，因为疟疾已经对旧药产生了抗药性。
2001年世界卫生组织与诺华公司签订一项协议，规定该制药公司向世界卫生组织以成本价提供青蒿素复合制剂――复方蒿甲醚Co-Artem，供公共部门在疟疾流行的发展中国家使用。
“我们希望非洲尽快种植艾蒿，但是我们想要有一个强劲的市场，并且希望这个市场能够在未来发展壮大，”世界卫生组织的疟疾专家艾伦?沙皮拉（Allan Schapira）说。他表示，短期内现有供应量相对来说不会提高多少，可能而其中有10％来自亚洲。
“不过根据我们迄今为止所观察的数据显示，东非的产量非常高，”他补充说：“因此，东非可能将会扮演一个重要的角色。”
