The Tree that Kills Malaria — and the Mosquitoes

The scientists have published their findings continually, and you might expect that the international pharmaceutical industry would react with interest. Malaria infects ca. 200 million people every year, and there are major resistance problems with the drugs that are already on the market. There is an urgent need for new drugs – but the scientists have so far not been contacted.

“I can imagine several reasons why we haven’t heard anything. One reason might be, to put it slightly maliciously, that the international pharmaceutical industry doesn’t always seem very interested in diseases that are mostly a problem in the "Third World." The second possible reason is that these findings have been published in scientific journals, which makes it more difficult to obtain patent protection for active substances”, Malterud suggests.

“The third reason may be that the Convention on Biological Diversity(link is external) (CBD), which Norway and most other nations have ratified, stipulates that the rights to the commercial exploitation of biological material resides in the country of origin”, he adds.

The pharmaceutical industry must always carry out extensive and expensive clinical trials before a new medicine can be approved, but there are so far no plans for such actions when it comes to the compounds found in the bark of the two African trees. That doesn’t stop Helle Wangensteen and Karl Egil Malterud from believing that their research can be used for the benefit of malaria-stricken patients in West Africa.

“In the short term, it is realistic to imagine that our colleagues in Congo may communicate the new knowledge to the traditional healers in the region. It could be useful for them to know that the bark from the Olon tree contains active compounds that have effects against both malaria-transmitting mosquitoes and the parasite itself”, Malterud comments.

“We can also contribute with new insights on how these substances can be used. For example, we discovered that water-based extracts contain relatively little of the active substances, whereas alcoholic extracts contain much higher concentrations. Perhaps it would be possible to spray the puddles where the mosquitoes hatch with a locally produced solution containing pellitorine”, he adds.

All in all, the scientists at the School of Pharmacy tested more than ten compounds from the two African trees. In addition to the already mentioned compounds, it turned out that also the alkaloid heitziquinone, which was not previously known, has activity against the malaria parasite.

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