Friday, March 07, 2008

Resolutions of the 51st National Coucil on Health Meeting: Further Responses

As I write this post, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in conjunction with the African Union is holding a conference dubbed "Science with Africa" in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This conference aims to bring to the forefront the indispensable link between science, innovation, research and sustainable growth in Africa. Asclepius, responding to an earlier discourse about the efficacy of Nicosan in sickle cell anemia sends an abstract of a clinical trial presented at this conference. I reproduce this below.


Evaluation of Niprisan (Herbal Medicine) for the Management of Sickle Cell
Anaemia

Charles Wambebe and Hadiza Khamofu, International Biomedical Research in Africa, Abuja, Nigeria, wambebe@yahoo.com, Joseph Okogun, Nathan Nasipuri and Karynius Gamaniel, National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Abuja, Nigeria.


About 70% of all sickle cell anemia (SCA) subjects reside in Africa, estimated at over 12 million. The prevalence of SCA is estimated at over 2% while infant mortality is about 8% and survival rate of SCA babies in rural areas by five years of age is about 20%. These statistics indicate that SCA is probably the most neglected (and sometimes forgotten by health authorities) serious public health disorder with serious mortality and morbidity rates in Africa. The objective was to undertake pre-clinical and clinical assessments of a herbal extract vis-à-vis management of sickle cell anemia using Good Laboratory Practice and Good Clinical Practice principles respectively. In Africa, there is no standard treatment for sickle cell anemia, only palliative management is generally available. In view of this situation, most SCA subjects use herbal medicines. NIPRISAN is a standardized extract from four medicinal/food plants: Piper guineenses seeds, Pterocarpus osun stem, Eugenia caryophyllum fruit and Sorghum bicolor leaves. Short term toxicity study indicated that NIPRISAN was safe in laboratory animals. Bio-activity guided fractionation show that vanillin and aromatic aldehydes may be the bioactive moieties. NIPRISAN reversed sickled red blood cells and protected them from being sickled when exposed to low oxygen tension. NIPRISAN dose- dependently delayed polymer formation of haemoglobin S. NIPRISAN induced 85% increased solubility of deoxy haemoglobin S. The in vivo efficacy study was undertaken at Children Hospital of Philadelphia, USA. Histological examination of lungs of control Tg transgenic mice carrying human sickle haemoglobin showed entrapment of massive numbers
of sickled cells in alveolar capillaries. NIPRISAN significantly cleared the lungs of sickled cells. Furthermore, NIPRISAN induced profound effect on the survival time of Tg mice under hypoxic conditions (p<0.0001). The phase II clinical data indicated that all the subjects benefited from NIPRISAN with no serious adverse effect. About 80% of the subjects did not experience any crisis during the study (12 months). The subjects experienced significant reduction in hospital admission while attendance at school profoundly increased. Furthermore, there was no evidence of kidney or liver damage. NIPRISAN has been patented, licensed to an American company, registered and being manufactured at Abuja for global market.