Artemisia (Qing Hao) has recently attracted considerable publicity as a possible alternative to anti-malarial drugs following the development of resistant strains of malaria in some parts of the world.

Artemisia has been used as an anti-malarial drug in China for two thousand years, but it has recently been discovered that artemisia also inhibits toxoplasmosis in the test tube (Ou-Yang). It has been suggested that artemisia may also be active against Pneumocystis carinii, but there is no laboratory or clinical evidence to support this view.

References

Ou-Yang K et al. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 34:1961-1965, 1990.