Welcome to
MOXAFRICA IS A BRITISH CHARITY DEDICATED TO INVESTIGATE DIRECT MOXIBUSTION IMMUNOMODULATION AS AN ADJUNCTIVE TREATMENT FOR TUBERCULOSIS, PARTICULARLY WHEN DRUG-RESISTANT.
MOXAFRICA
NEWS
MAY 9th, WORLD MOXA DAY!
Could moxa help us in the "new normal" as well?
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We can learn ways to give ourselves the best chance of staying healthy in the new normal. Everyone needs a strong immune system and moxa is a safe way to build natural immunity. We know it can help TB patients and we think it may be useful against other infections as well. Let's see how much it can help our COVID world!
Discover how to use moxa - download our free manual >>
ABOUT
TUBERCULOSIS
Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease caused by a bacterial infection which is transmitted through the air when someone who is infectious with the disease coughs or sneezes. TB is both preventable and treatable with special antibiotics, yet every year it kills more people than any other infectious disease. In fact, in each year more people are currently dying from TB than HIV and malaria combined.
Treating this disease is complicated by the fact that the mycobacteria possess an unusually thick, waxy cell wall which isn’t easy for drugs to penetrate - but also because they have the ability to survive in multiple locations in the body. An initial infection, furthermore, has the unusual capacity to ‘hide out’ in the body, potentially for years following the first infection – a condition which is called ‘latent infection’.
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Because these bacteria are so hardy it means that even straightforward treatment of ‘drug-susceptible’ TB needs a combination of four different drugs taken for at least six months. With drug-resistant forms it currently needs six weaker and more toxic drugs taken for between 9 and 24 months. These drugs can have pernicious and often permanent side-effects and are associated with very poor treatment outcomes. Unfortunately these treatments are also currently largely unaffordable in the countries which most need them.
PROJECTS
In partnership with Uganda's Makerere University, Moxafrica completed the first scientific study that has ever looked at the effects of daily small cone moxa on people with active pulmonary TB disease and this research also included TB patients co-infected with HIV/AIDS today. Since then we have also helped develop one further research into the effects of moxa in North Korean MDR-TB patients and another looking at how it might reduce the 'reactivation' of the disease from latency. Each of these studies has produced separate very exciting results.
Our aim is to develop more investigations as well as moxa projects wherever we can, in order to empower people with a home therapy that can really help their health and recovery from illness.
RESULTS OF RESEARCH
RCT PHASE II (Randomised Control Trial)
Conducted by Makerere University's School of Health Sciences, Uganda.
You can download the published results of the Ugandan Phase II RCT (in the European Journal of Integrative Medicine) here:
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You can download the peer-reviewed article which collated the data from the Ugandan study and the two North Korean studies here as a pdf:
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DIRECT
MOXIBUSTION
Small cone direct moxibustion (‘moxa’) consists of smouldering rice-grain sized cones of moxa (which is refined Artemesia Princeps) on specific locations on the skin. This therapy has been used for centuries in conjunction with acupuncture in East Asian Medicine (as well as in a stand-alone treatment). Stand-alone moxibustion techniques have been particularly refined and developed in Japan.
Moxa is known to have positive effects on blood circulation and also to enhance the immune system. Small cone direct moxibustion also has a history which (significantly) includes documentary evidence of treating patients with TB with reports of recoveries. These reports have now been preliminarily confirmed by scientific investigation which have been facilitated by Moxafrica.
Moxa is extremely low-tech, is safe and is also very cheap. It is also eminently adaptable to resource-poor and remote environments.
Given all of the above we are carrying out investigative research to establish whether moxibustion can help combat TB today, but most particularly when the drugs are failing.
