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Promising Plant May Be Good for Two Tropical Diseases

Two significant tropical diseases could find relief with some plants native to the Mojave Desert region. Ohio State University has been working on possible treatments for killing the parasites that cause African sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis. These two diseases are rarely found in the United States and Canada but they are a growing problem in certain areas of the world like Africa.

The extracts of two plants - the dotted dalea and the Mojave dalea - have shown promise in killing the protozoa, a kind of parasite, that cause these diseases. People in developing countries as well as health care workers and military in these areas are at risk of contracting this disease. And if left untreated, they have high death rates. The two protozoa that cause the leishmaniasis and African sleeping sickness are Leishmania donovani and Trypanosoma brucei respectively.

The medications used currently to treat leishmaniasis and African sleeping sickness aka African trypanosomiasis can be quite expensive and sometimes could prove to be toxic to the patient. In addition, the parasites causing these illnesses could eventually become resistant to current medical treatments. This is the reason why the discovery of the two Mojave plants is such good news.

Currently most of the drugs treating these protozoan parasitic diseases are available only as an injection and must be administered over a long period of time for true effectiveness. The goal of researchers at Ohio State University is to find a way to produce the plant extracts into a pill form that can be swallowed, eliminating a lengthy treatment process as well as the exorbitant costs.

The goal of Ohio University is to determine how to process the plant extracts in such a way so as not to destroy or harm any kidney cells. Some drugs aimed at killing these parasites causing these two tropical diseases are harmful to some of the organs like the kidney, thus the search for gentler yet effective treatments. Thus far, these two plants have been the best at inhibiting the growth and multiplication of the protozoa that cause leishmaniasis and the sleeping sickness.

One of the reasons why treatments are being worked on with such determination is that there is becoming more and more involvement of military as well as health workers in these areas where the two diseases are endemic. Falling ill to them will hamper the responsibilities of the military and health workers as well as any others in the area in addition to possibly causing disfigurement as well as a lower immunity to other illnesses.

There is an American trypanosomiasis in addition to the African trypanosomiasis aka sleeping sickness. In addition, there are several forms of the leishmaniasis - a visceral (internal) form and cutaneous form which affects the skin. It is not known quite yet how the plant extracts from the dotted dalea and the Mojave dalea will work on the various forms of the disease. However, just identifying these plants is a huge step in the right direction for new treatments for these prominent tropical diseases.