developing resistance. Since 2005, when ACTs became the preferred treatment of the World Health Organization (WHO), governments and health policy-makers have encouraged farmers in China, Vietnam and elsewhere to grow A. annua to meet rising demand. But the dependence on erratic donor funding, along with a production cycle that can take a year and a half from planting to drug production, has made it difficult to manage that supply. Last year, a bumper crop of A. annua and fears of declining funding sent artemisinin prices plummeting (see ‘The cost of progress’).
Yeast make ACT production faster and more