The university’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Hayward Mafuayi, who made the announcement at a press conference in Jos, said the plant, also known as Sweet wormwood, is an active ingredient in the anti-malarial combination therapy that is widely used to treat malaria.
He said the study conducted by the university successfully tested and confirmed the growing of Artemisia annua for research and production which until recently, was only known to have been grown in China, India, East Africa and the Island of Madagascar.
Mafuayi explained that the institution through its Centre for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering have harvested “283 kg of dry Artemisia annua leaves and 48 kg of Artemisia annua seeds which have already been tested at the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), Abuja, and have confirmed that the Artemisinin content of the leaves contains 4.8% of Artesinin weight.
“The percentage is much higher than most strains of the plant grown in other parts of the world which have been used for Artemisin combination Therapy,” he said.
He thanked the Federal Ministry of Education and the World Bank for funding STEP-B initiative for commercial cultivation of the plant which he said gulped $198,000 and urged pharmaceutical companies and other interested clients to partner with the university in the continued cultivation and research on plant.
Sweet Wormwood was widely used by Chinese herbalists in ancient times to treat fever, but had fallen out of common use, but was rediscovered in 1970's when the Chinese Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments (340 AD) was found. This pharmacopeia contained recipes for a tea from dried leaves, prescribed for fevers (not specifically malaria).
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