DELSU Don, Onyesom Rallies Scientists Against Malaria Through MedIcinal Plants

By Ben Nwanne

The scourge of malaria came under focus on Thursday at the Delta State University, Abraka (DELSU) where an expert in Medical Biochemistry and Metabolic Medicine, Professor Innocent Onyesom took the stage in an Inaugural Lecture to offer succour to a world (particularly Africa), traumatized by the disease.

Professor Onyesom, relying on the World Health Organisation (WHO), defined malaria as “an acute febrile illness caused by Plasmodium parasites which are spread to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.” He identified seven parasite species that cause malaria in humans, noting that P. Falciparum is the deadliest malaria parasite and the most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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In his lecture entitled “Malaria Phytotherapy: New Approach to an Ancient Disease,” Professor Onyesom provided a historical background to the disease and offered some insight into addressing the problem. According to him, “reports of what was almost certainly malaria were recorded in the Egyptian papyri from 1570 B.C. For more than 2,500 years, the notion that malaria fevers were caused by miasmas coming from swamps was upheld. It was popularly believed that the word “malaria” came from the Italian word ‘mal aria’ meaning spoilt air. However, over the years, several scientific studies provided evidence that malaria is caused by protozoan parasites transmitted by mosquito vector.”

The soft-spoken Professor took time to highlight how mosquitoes “deploy their arsenal” against their hosts, explaining that the interaction time between mosquitoes and their hosts involved a complex sequence of mosquito behaviours which include flight activation, attraction, landing and probing (piercing) according to the scientist. Unfortunately for humans, some of their involuntary and natural actions such as” the presence of Carbon IV Oxide(CO2) exhaled from the breath or mouth or released through the skin of the host, and other volatile organic compounds from breath and sweat of hosts, synergize with carbon dioxide to inform the mosquito of a potential source.”

According to the bespectacled Professor Onyesom, Nigeria has the highest burden of malaria in the entire world, and therefore Africa, particularly Nigeria, must find urgent and workable solutions to the malaria assault, hence his commendation of the February 18, 2023 meeting where Africans converged to explore how African scientists could solve African problems using African resources. In the same vein, the Professor commended Delta State University and its cerebral Vice-Chancellor Professor Andy Egwunyenga for putting together a Malaria Research Team which is already working in full gear.

The prodigious researcher with over 137 single and co-authored publications, projected that in the not too distant future, plant based medicine would increasingly play a major role in the management of tropical diseases. “We should anticipate their dominance with all amount of enthusiasm,” he advised.

According to him, “the discovery of novel therapeutic agents in medicinal plants is fundamental to the development of anti-malarial phytotheraphy. Selection of the appropriate lead candidate with huge efficacy and safe properties is the most challenging task in development of anti-malarial drugs (phytomedicines) from medicinal plants, because side effects, contraindications, treatment time, dosage and toxicity are crucial issues which must be thoroughly considered and established for product registration by authorized agent(s).”

While encouraging Nigeria to speed up its effort at developing efficacious anti-malarial drugs from medicinal plants, Professor Onyesom informed his huge audience, including some of his teachers from Primary through University, his mother, Mrs Diana Onyesom; mentor, Prof. Patrick Okoh and former School Principal, 88 -year- old Mr Peter Izah at the 750 Lecture Theatre A, that some anti malaria phytomedicines had been successfully developed with governmental approval in Ghana, Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Despite his enthusiasm for developing anti-malarial drugs from medicinal herbs/plants, he is not unmindful of the inherent challenges such as lack of continuous access to sufficient quantities of natural compounds from medicinal plants and plant molecular farming and the dearth of academic research findings, among others.

Professor Onyesom fell back on his considerable teaching and research experience to comment on some popularly held but wrong beliefs. According to him, natural honey is “not a substitute for fructose, worsening blood pressure.” He observed that alcohol produced both beneficial and injurious effects in the body “depending on the amount and type consumed, and the frequency of such consumption.”

Decorating the Inaugural Lecturer with the University’s Honorary Medal, Professor Egwunyenga who has been on the saddle for the past forty months commended the Inaugural Lecturer for a job well done, describing him as an “Organic Researcher who is well poised for the task before him. He has done considerably work in his presentation. He is a focused Researcher and an asset to DELSU. He is calm and calculated. A Researcher who knows his onions. That is the stuff DELSU is known for : cutting edge Research and Researchers that are competitive anywhere in the world.”