Andes' elixir

Deep in the forest at the foot of the Andes, there are quinquina trees once used to cure malaria, now advertised to cure Covid-19.

Spread as a giant green carpet where the Andes intersect with the Amazon basin in southwestern Peru, Manú National Park is one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Trees grow throughout the UNESCO nature reserve about 1.5 million hectares hidden in the fog, under the vines and largely unaffected by any human impact. In it, there are cinchona trees (Vietnamese name is Cinchona), a rare and endangered species. The slender trunk is about 15 m high, easily mixed in the dense trees.

"It may not be a common species. But the extract of this plant has saved millions of lives in human history," said Nataly Canales, who grew up in the Amazon Madre de Dios region of Peru. . Now Canales is a biologist at the National Museum of Denmark, following the genetic map of quinina.

Cinchona is the country of Peru and Ecuador. Photo: Talking Trees.

For centuries, malaria has claimed the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. It ravaged the Roman empire; killing 150 to 300 million people in the 20th century, according to WHO and nearly half of the world's population still live in areas where this contagious disease exists. During the Middle Ages, most mal malia treatments (meaning bad gases in Italian) were painful, from blood drawn to amputation, and a hole in the skull. Few people know that the first remedy for malaria was found deep in the forest, at the foot of the Andes.

While the world has been welcoming the discovery of quinine hundreds of years ago with both joy and suspicion, in recent weeks, quinine derivatives have become a controversial issue. paralysis Synthetic versions of quinine - such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine - are offered for sale as nCoV remedy, especially some people advertise Covid-19 cinchona tea in Brazil.

According to legend, quinine was discovered to be a cure for malaria in 1631 when Countess Cinchona, a Spanish aristocrat married to a ruler of the Peruvian colony, had a high fever and chills - symptoms. picture of malaria. Wanting to cure his wife's illness, he gave her a drink prepared by the Jesuits from the bark growing at the foot of the Andes, mixed with clove syrup, rose syrup and other dried herbs.

The earl soon recovered and the tree cured her disease was named after her. While this myth is controversial, the fact that quinine can kill malaria parasites - Spanish priests were not the first to discover it.

"Quinine was no stranger to the Quechua, Cañari and Chimú natives of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador today. They were the ones who introduced dark cinnamon bark bark like cinnamon to the priests who crushed them. It became a thick and bitter powder that was easy to digest, and its popular name was Jesuits Powder, and people from across Europe began writing about a malaria remedy. now in the jungle of the New World.

By the 1640s, the Jesuits had set up a transit route for quinquina throughout Europe. In response to the Siberian craze, Europeans hired indigenous people to find the panacea in the jungle, scrape the machete with their shells, and send them to ships carrying queues at countless ports throughout Peru. As the market became increasingly hot, the Spaniards also declared the Andes region "the world's drugstore," and quinquina soon became a valuable herb.

The value of quinquina soared in the 19th century, when malaria became one of the greatest threats to European soldiers stationed throughout overseas colonies. "Medicines like quinine help the military survive in tropical colonies and win the battle," said Dr. Rohan Deb Roy, author of Malarial Subjects, a book on malaria.

Dr. Deb Roy assessed that, at that time, the abundant supply of quinine gradually became a strategic advantage in the race for global domination, and the quinquina bark became one of the The hottest item in the world. He explained, from the Dutch in Indonesia, the British in India, Jamaica and throughout Southeast Asia, West Africa ... all use quinquina.

In fact, from 1848 until 1861, the British government spent about 6.4 million pounds a year importing imported quail bark reserves to the army in the colony. That is why historians often refer to quinine as one of the "tools of imperialism" - creating the power of the British empire.

Cinchona bark was once the hottest item in the world. Photo: The Conversation UK.

Just as countries today race to find the Covid-19 vaccine to their advantage, the empires of that time were also aggressively hoarding quinine, Patricia Schlagenhauf, a professor of tourism health at the University of Zurich specializing in malaria. , explain.

Not only the bark, but the seeds of quinquina are also valuable, and hunted down. Dr Deb Roy said that both the UK and the Netherlands wanted to plant cinchona in their colonies so they did not need to depend on South America. But choosing the right seed is also not easy, because there are 23 varieties of quinquina, each containing different levels of quinine. Thanks to the locals with knowledge of indigenous plants, Europeans can get seeds of quinine-rich quinine for export.

By the mid-1850s, Britain successfully established the first "fever treatment plants" in southern India, where malaria was raging. Shortly after, the British government began distributing locally produced quinine to soldiers and civil servants.

Flowers and leaves of quinquina. Photo: W.H. Hodge / Britannica.

Quinine was eventually "disgraced" in the 1970s when artemisinin, a remedy for malaria derived from wormwood. However, the legacy of quinine still exists throughout the world. One of them is the Bandung region, which was dubbed the "Paris of Java" (Indonesia). The Dutch turned this once calm sea into the world's largest quinine port, filled with buildings, dance floors and hotels.

English is widely spoken in India, Hong Kong, Sierra Leone, Kenya and coastal Sri Lanka; and French is popular in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria today in part because of quinine. And in Spanish, there is still a way to say "ser ser más malo que la quina" - roughly translated, worse than quinine, to refer to the bitter taste of quinquina bark.

At the height of the quinine hunt in the 1850s, Peru and Bolivia were the exclusive export markets of quinquina bark, to the point that this item accounted for 15% of Bolivia's taxable income.

However, precious Indonesian plantations once left scars for its native habitat. In 1805, there were an estimated 25,000 quintals in the Andes region of Ecuador, which now belongs to Podocarpus National Park - now only 29 trees remain.

Canales explained that removing quinine-rich varieties from the Andes has changed the genetic structure of quinine, reducing their ability to evolve and change. Part of Canales' work, in collaboration with the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens on the outskirts of London, is looking at samples of ancient cinchona bark preserved in museums to study the art. of human behavior with this species.

In May, WHO halted research on hydroxychloroquine, an artificial synthetic chemical from quinine, as a drug capable of curing nCoV because of safety concerns. However, on June 3, WHO decided to continue testing hydroxychloroquine as a remedy capable of treating Covid-19. Although the drug is developed in a laboratory and not extracted from trees in the forest, Canales said that conservation of quinquina and habitat of this species is still important for new findings of the industry. future health.

An An (According to BBC)

The places visitors can look at quinquina

Manú National Park, Peru: Paradise of biodiversity, with over 5,000 plant species to breed.

Cutervo National Park, Peru: Peru's most protected natural area has 88 species of orchids, and is the only remaining cloud forest of the Peruvian highlands.

Semilla Bendia Botanical Garden, Peru: This garden is managed by local environmentalists and is home to more than 1,300 indigenous species, including orchids and quinina.

Podocarpus National Park, Ecuador: One of the last remaining nations of Ecuador. When walking through the misty trail, you can come across bears, one of the sacred animals of the Andes.