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Helping to combat malaria in Gambian
villages
Following a lead from Pageant member
Elizabeth Fisher, we have been trying to set up a scheme where
Gambian villages can benefit directly from plants grown to combat
malaria. The plant in question, Artemisia, has been used as a cure
for malaria for hundreds of years in places such as China - the
problem as far as The Gambia is concerned has been that it does not
grow in hot climates.
There is now a new cultivar called 'Anamed'
that apparently is able to grow well in hot weather and still retain
its anti-malarial characteristics. The special seeds are available
from Europe but as they are not cheap they need to be grown
carefully, especially during the early stages of growth. This would
be beyond the capabilities of the normal village gardeners, but if
the early growing stage could be carried out by knowledgeable
growers in controlled conditions and the young plants given to the
villages to cultivate - then, we felt, theoretically these plants
could be grown in every village and the leaves harvested to provide
an inexpensive treatment for malaria.
We realised that before this could happen
trials would have to be carried out both to see that the plants will
grow and that the benefits attributed to the plants are real - we
were delighted to find that the research department of the Gambian
National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) was already running
trials and that the plants it had produced showed a good yield of
the active ingredient. The leader of the programme had fallen ill
with malaria during the summer, had taken the 'tea' made from the
leaves and had recovered much more quickly than usual. The people
living in the villages surrounding NARI were already starting to ask
for leaves for their own use - so, the problem is, how to get it
into the villages.
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Kemo and Pippa arrive at
NARI |
Ian and Mr Darboe
discussing the trial plants |
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Kemo joins in the discussion |
Discussing how to take
cuttings |
We visited NARI one afternoon and were shown
round the laboratory and the experimental planting area by Mr Lamin
Jobe, Programme Leader and Acting Director of Research and Pest
Management, and Mr Momodou LK Darboe, who is the leader of the
Artemisia annua 'Anamed' growing programme. The photos show Ian,
Kemo and Mr Darboe discussing the plants - these plants were well
established and cuttings from them had already been taken.
Following our discussions we agreed that we
would finance a trial programme for five villages - this programme
would entail NARI obtaining and planting fresh seed and producing 64
good small plants for each village. These would be planted in an
eight by eight square at roughly 1 metre spacing in each village
garden - NARI would supervise the planting, explain how to care for
the plants and then return to the villages some 3 months later to
show the villagers how to take cuttings, pick and store the leaves
and generally keep the garden thriving.
The money for this trial programme has now
been sent out - we await results with great interest and hope that
this might be of real benefit to the more remote, mosquito-infested
villages of The Gambia.
Elizabeth has sadly died since she introduced
this idea to us at our last AGM - we feel that this project, which
was very dear to her heart, will make a fitting memorial to her.
Gambian National Agricultural Research
Institute (NARI) has started training villagers in the cultivation
of Artemisia plants. Kemo accompanied Mr Darboe of NARI on some of
these sessions. As usual there were more ladies than men, because it
is the women who usually look after the gardens. Just the pictures
for now. We will bring you more details when we get them.
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sign announcing the
training programme |
Mr Darboe talking to
villagers |
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Mr Darboe with some
villagers and one of the Artemisia plants |
village women with an
Artemisia plant |
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villagers gather under a
tree
for a training session |
Artemisia plants being
delivered to a village |
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village gardens where
the Artemisia plants will be grown |
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