Belgian firm unveils ‘miracle’ malaria cure
11 November 2005
BRUSSELS — Belgian pharmaceutical firm Dafra Pharma has developed a
medicine that can easily cure malaria sufferers.
The Turnhout-based company said the drug — based on a Chinese medicinal
herb — was a medical breakthrough because infected patients can be cured in
one day.
Moreover, the patient no longer has to be admitted to hospital. Current
treatment methods take much longer and a far more complicated, broadcaster
VRT reported.
The product is also very cheap, priced at just EUR 1 or 50 euro cents for
child doses. It is thus ideal for the African market, where the highest
number of malaria victims is recorded.
Dafra Pharma is currently compiling documentation
to allow for the export of the drug. In 2006, the company hopes to release
the medicine on the African market.
Some 1.5 million people die from malaria each year. In Africa, official
estimates suggest a child under five years of age dies every 30 seconds
from malaria.
Mounting resistance to existing treatments and problems associated with
post-treatment relapses have rendered more conventional therapies
increasingly ineffective.
Dafra Pharma’s new medicine will be unveiled on 14 November at the
Multilateral Initiative for Malaria (MIM) Congress in Yaounde, Cameroon,
which some 2,000 scientists will attend, Yahoo news reported
