Madagascar’s Green Gold

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Madagascar’s government garnered international media attention for their herbal remedy to COVID-19, made from the Artemisia plant, called “Covid-Organics” (CVO). While global media outlets presented CVO as yet another example of an inherent conflict between traditional African medicine and Western medicine, this article hypothesizes that the release of CVO offers a rare window into the dynamic processes by which ecological, technological, and cultural developments in the production and distribution of artemisia and plant-based medicines in the country are giving rise to a multifaceted system of medical pluralism that attempts to strike a difficult balance between appeasing the rapidly growing global demand for plant-based medicines and preserving the country’s unique religious heritage and biodiversity

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Biodiversity · Biology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Development economics · Economics · Environmental ethics · Government (linguistics · Infectious disease (medical specialty · Pandemic · Pluralism (philosophy · Political science · Race (biology · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Sociology · Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies · Medicine · Ecology · Virology