Thousands of Africans fall prey to malaria every year. But a recent study shows that a Chinese herbal medicine could do wonders for treating cerebral malaria. The medicine called artemether can cure the patient more quickly and with fewer side effects. Earlier, malaria used to be treated with quinine which is derived from the bark of the cinchona tree. But in the recent past, new forms of malaria resistant to quinine have emerged in southeast Asia. It is now feared that quinine resistance will spread to Africa, where 90 per cent of the world's cases of cerebral malaria occur. An estimated 2.7 million Africans die each year from malaria and the number could go up to seven million if quinine resistance spreads from southeast Asia. Generally, new forms of drug resistance take about five years to reach Africa from Asia. A team led by Brian Greenwood of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tested the herbal drug on 586 children with cerebral malaria in Ghana and found that the survival rate of patients treated with artemether was more than those treated with quinine.