Fever Pitch

When you're fighting in the jungle, malaria can be as deadly as artillery. So when China waged a brief war against Vietnam in 1979, Beijing issued its troops a crude anti-malarial pill based on a traditional Chinese medicineand it worked. Today, hopes are high that a similar folk-remedy-derived treatment might help wipe out the disease. Scientists at the Mekong Malaria Symposium, held last week in Cambodia, announced that early clinical trials of the new drug Artekin eradicated malaria parasites in 95% to 100% of patients tested. And Artekin costs just $1.20 per dose, one-third the price of today's treatments. The drug...