Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Clinical Research On Acupuncture Treatment Of Malaria

Institute of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Acupuncture treatment of malaria has a long history but the effect of treating persons immigrated from another place into a highly endemic malarial district has not been ascertained. In order to study the curative effect of acupuncture on treating malaria among persons coming from another place, we carried out clinical research on acupuncture treatment of malaria cases in the highly endemic malarial district for three years and observed the relationship between acupuncture and nonspecific immunity of malaria. We treated 242 cases of each type of malaria among the local inhabitants in the highly endemic malarial district and the persons from outside. Clinically, the curative effect on each type of malaria among the local inhabitants was observed to be higher than that on the persons immigrated. There was certain curative effect on the immigrated persons suffering from subtertian malaria, who have lived in the highly endemic malaria district for a long time.


The number of malaria parasites present in the peripheral blood before acupuncture was definitely related to the curative effect, the effect of other factors being less. Better curative effect was observed with strong or moderate stimulation, and the effect was related to the time of acupuncture. Acupuncture once or twice daily had no obvious relations with the curative effect.

Using the value of serocomplement as an index, it was shown that the curative effect of acupuncture on malaria had definite relations with the serocomplement content. Its value increased after acupuncture in the effective group which became obvious after 72 hours, corresponding to the time of disappearance of clinical symptoms. Therefore, we consider that, on the basis of the immunity patients already had raised further the antiparasitic ability of the organism and achieved the objective of curing the disease. This may be the theoretical foundation for treating malaria in the future.

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