The Ministry of Health has announced plans to work with research centers to measure the efficiency of mosquito repellant trees to help the public make informed decision on which type of repellant works and how it can be used. Although Artenisia and other plants such as marigolds, rosemary, mint, lemon verbena have a big reputation in some countries as mosquito repellants, its effectiveness cannot be confirmed as there is no scientific evidence backing the claims according to the Malaria and Other Parasitic Diseases Division at the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC). Early last month, the ministry, in partnership with the Horizon Sopyrwa, planted over 1,890 Artenisia trees across the country. However RBC explained that the exercise was a trial run to see whether Artenisia really works. Aimable Mbituyumuremyi, who heads the Malaria docket at RBC said they plan to go to places where the trees were planted to gauge whether the trees helped in containing the disease. “So far, we can’t determine how many trees one needs to plant at which surface to fight malaria. But when these trees are extracted and used in form of topical lotions, sprays, candles, or incenses they were proved to be effective. Such products are available on the market and some are produced locally by Horizon Sopyrwa,” he said. While some people may want to have such trees in their compounds, Mbituyumuremyi said that these seedling are not yet available for mass distribution but they have a plan to work with different agriculture research centres to multiply them and give them out to people. Data analysis of malaria trends by the ministry indicated that between 2008 and 2009, malaria incidence dropped to as low as 36 per 1,000, but it started going up again – surging to 112 per 1000 people in 2013/14 and to 418 per 1000 in 2016/17. Recorded at a baseline of 82 per 1000 in 2011/12, the incidence of malaria had quadrupled by 2016/17. Victor Kagayigayi, the Crop Production Manager at Horizon Sopyirwa says the ‘Artemisia annua’ tree seedlings has its origin in China and Eastern Asia in the family of Asteraceae flowering plants such as pyrethrums, sunflowers and cobbler’s pegs among others. “Some drugs such as coartem that cure Malaria are processed from such plants and that is why we have partnered with the Ministry of Health so that we scale up the planting of Artemisia trees across the country,” he said. He added that the plant takes six months to grow saying that it’s easy to plant it. “We have so far planted over 50 thousands repellent trees.One tree of between one and five meters high can provide one million seeds. When you prepare a seed in a nursery, you can plant it before it grows up to five centimeters,” he said. He explained that the company has established a factory that extracts different substances from various plants adding that research is ongoing on how it will extract the type of plant into anti-malaria drugs among other essential oil projects. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
