Page 9 - GHES-3-3

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability

REVIEW ARTICLE
Medicinal plants as more sustainable therapeutic

solutions: Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra as
case studies

Pamela J. Weathers*

Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA, United
States of America

Abstract

Humans have used botanicals as traditional medicines for millennia, yet Western
biomedicine has shunned many of these as undefined and often unreliable. While
not all botanicals have a strong scientific basis or can be directly used as therapeutics,
two, Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra, are quite well-established for their safety
and efficacy within ethnopharmacological and scientific literature. A. annua, being
better studied, is especially effective against many diseases. It is inexpensive, has
consistent phytochemical content within a cultivar grown in its local region, evades
the evolution of parasite drug resistance, and can be reliably produced on both
large and small scales. Well-defined botanical drugs offer major benefits for more
Academic editor:
Mihajlo Jakovljevic M.D. Ph.D. MAE sustainable global health-care. This review highlights these two plant species as
examples of how the broader implementation of botanical drugs can decrease costs,
*Corresponding author:
Pamela J. Weathers promote environmental sustainability, and deliver economic benefits – especially to
(weathers@wpi.edu) rural communities – by empowering them to manage their health-care needs more
Citation: Weathers, P.J. (2025). sustainably. Comparisons are made between the agricultural and production costs
Medicinal plants as more of an extracted natural product versus Artemisia as a traditional botanical medicine.
sustainable therapeutic solutions: The review also examines the impact of climate on these two crops and provides a
Artemisia annua and Artemisia afra
as case studies. Global Health Econ brief comparison of the carbon footprints of traditionally produced botanical drugs
Sustain, 3(3):1-17. versus their commercially produced counterparts. A specific, successful example
https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.4927 of sustainable production of A. annua is also described. Overall, there are many
Received: September 24, 2024 well-established reasons to advocate for broader approval of botanical drugs to
strengthen global health-care systems.
Revised: December 19, 2024
Accepted: January 9, 2025
Keywords: Rural Artemisia production; Dried leaf Artemisia; Artemisinin; Malaria;
Published Online: February 5, Artemisinin bioavailability; Artemisinin drug resistance; Artemisia phytochemical
2025
consistency
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution, 1. Introduction
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is About 80% of the global population relies on traditional medicines, with medicinal plants
properly cited. constituting a significant component of this usage (World Health Organization, 2002;
Publisher’s Note: AccScience WHO, 2013). As highlighted in this review, they also can offer a more sustainable and
Publishing remains neutral with cost-effective approach to treating many diseases. Artemisia annua L. and Artemisia afra
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional Jacq. ex Willd. are two widely used medicinal plants (Figure 1). A. annua, in particular,
affiliations. is grown commercially on large plantations across equatorial Africa, China, India, and

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.4927