Traditional medicines in Samoa
and Aotearoa are being investigated for their potential to
treat viral illnesses.
Auckland University’s senior
lecturer Natalie Netzler – Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Hauā and
Samoa – Moto’otua, Falealili – is working on combining
indigenous medicinal knowledge and virology to find
treatments for diseases such as dengue, Zika, and
measles.
She told RNZ Nine to Noon that from an
early age, the value of indigenous medicine has been
embedded in her.
“When we were growing up, if we had a
headache, we would always go to Dad, who would give us a
traditional Samoan massage, called a fofo,” she
said.
“It’s quite a firm massage and I have to say, as
a child, I remember thinking that my skull was going to be
crushed in his massive hands, but as soon as he lifted his
hands away, then the headache was gone, just like Samoan
magic.”
Netzler said her work’s main drive is to find
broad spectrum anti-virals – essentially, one drug to cure
lots of bugs.
She said last year, study funding led
finding two Samoan traditional medicines that were effective
against the virus that causes covid.
She said she is
working closely with a number of trusted relationships in
both Samoa and Aotearoa, mostly in Muriwhenua in the Far
North.
“We establish independent governance, we make
sure that we co-design the study, and then once it’s in the
lab, then I test it against a number of viruses to see if it
can actually work as an antiviral.
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“It’s obviously
really important that we protect both the taonga species of
the plant as well as the indigenous intellectual property.
It’s really important that we make sure that everything we
do is sustainable, so that we’re not damaging the
whenua.
“The last thing we want is for extractive
processes where all of a sudden ‘Big Pharma’ come in and
plant like 100 acres of these plants and it’s all very
removed from the way it should be done.”
She said if
the medicine appears to be effective against the virus, that
information is relayed back to traditional healers. She also
works with chemists.
“If we found a traditional Samoan
medicine that has already been used for millennia for
treating, say, respiratory disease or arthritis, and we know
it’s safe and effective for that use – if we can show that
it’s effective against dengue, then we communicate that back
to the traditional healers, and they can start implementing
that straight away.
“What we would envisage for
something more large scale is … working with the chemist
to find something unique and patentable that could then be
synthesized in a lab on a large scale, as opposed to making
a production line.
“But it’s not to say that there
couldn’t be a side commercial opportunity for these
community partners to maybe come up with their own
nutraceuticals and develop it in their own way, as kaitiaki
of their own whenua.”
Dengue in
Aotearoa
Currently, the country does not have the
mosquitoes that transmit the disease, but Netzler said
global warming could change that.
Last year, the World
Health Organisation’s Pacific technical support director Dr
Mark Jacobs said July regional data showed the
number of suspected dengue cases was at the highest since
2016.
Samoa is still grappling with cases, and the
Cook Islands announced the
first dengue-related death of their current outbreak
earlier this month.
“I think we’re really at the brunt
of global warming in the Pacific. And so what we’re seeing
is that the rainy season seems to be lasting longer, and
these dengue outbreaks, which are usually just confined to
the rainy season, they are sort of scattered throughout the
year now,” Netzler said.
“We’re getting a large number
of dengue imports into Aotearoa New Zealand every year. The
key difference with the Pacific nations and [New Zealand] is
that currently we don’t have the Aedes mosquitoes that can
transmit dengue and Zika.
“However, with global
warming up in the Far North, we are actually now warm enough
to support the overwintering of … those species in the
water. And so what that means is that, with dengue being
imported all the time here, and with the chance of the
mosquito coming in, we really are under great risk of
getting local transmission of dengue and Zika. And so we
really need to be ahead of that game.”
Dengue cases
have been imported into New Zealand, but cannot be
transmitted
person-to-person.
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