Li Guoqiao 李國橋, at the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, is using the antimalarial drug artemisinin for mass prophylaxis on Moheli Island, off the coast of East Africa.

The objective is to wipe out malaria by treating every man, woman and child. It seems to be working, according to one preliminary report.

Three things worry me about this.

First, why is the preliminary report coming out through Reuters, not through a recognized peer-reviewed journal? This is usually a bad sign, or a sign that the science is built on rather shaky ground.

Second, is it ethical to treat 40000 Moheli islanders, many who can’t read or write, with a drug they’ve probably never heard about before? This doesn’t sound like informed consent to me.

My third concern is the danger of generating resistance. Tu Youyou 屠呦呦 – the scientist who discovered artemisinin in the 1970s – pointed this out in an interview, although I get the impression she doesn’t like Li Guoqiao on principle. But still, didn’t we try this before, with chloroquine in salt?

What’s more, if resistance does emerge on Moheli, it will need decades-long follow up to spot it, and I doubt the Chinese team are going to stay in place that long.

What are your views? Is the Moheli experiment mad, bad and dangerous?