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In the News, Winter 2021 – 22: Wormwood as an Antiviral

Sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua L.), a medicinal plant native to the temperate regions of Southeast Asia, has recently demonstrated efficacy against RNA viruses. In a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Nair et al. tested the in vitro ability of sweet wormwood leaf extracts to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 and its United Kingdom and South African variants (B1.1.7 and B1.351). Extracts were taken from seven cultivated varieties sourced from four continents. The extract concentrations needed to inhibit replication of the virus by 50% were calculated, and tea infusions were prepared to test the extracts. Human lung cancer and African green monkey kidney cells were infected with the USA SARS-CoV-2 isolate as well as the United Kingdom and South African variants for the in vitro assessment.
Artemisinin, a compound isolated from the sweet wormwood plant, was previously shown to block SARS-CoV-1 in 2005, and has been successfully employed as an antimalarial drug since the 1970s. In fact, a 2012 review found artemisinin-based therapies to be the most effective antimalarial agent available. The Chinese herbalism use of Artemisia annua for malaria and other fever-related ailments goes back at least 2,000 years.
Calculating on the basis of total flavonoid content, Nair et al. saw that the concentrations at which the extracts were able to prevent the virus from replicating by 50% ranged from 0.01 to 0.14 mcg/ml. Interestingly, data from the experiment suggested that artemisinin was not the principal ingredient responsible for suppressing the virus, as the extracts with the highest artemisinin and total flavonoid content required larger doses to block it.
Sources: Nair MS, Huang Y, Fidock DA, et al. Artemisia annua L. extracts inhibit the in vitro replication of SARS-CoV-2 and two of its variants. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2021; 274, 114016. DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2021.114016.
Fairhurst RM, Nayyar GM, Breman JG, et al. Artemisinin-resistant malaria: research challenges, opportunities, and public health implications. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2012; 87(2):231-241. DOI: 10.4269/ajtmh.2012.12-0025.
This article is part of an Antiviral Research Update. Other articles in the series focus on vitamin D and colostrum.
Published in the Price-Pottenger Journal of Health & Healing
Winter 2021-22 | Volume 45, Number 4
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