our work
Moxafrica has completed the only scientific study looking at the effects of moxa on TB and HIV today. We are now developing further research into the effects of moxa on the immune system in North Korea and in Japan. We aim to empower people to help themselves with home therapy that helps recovery.
UGANDA
SOUTH AFRICA
NORTH KOREA (DPRK)
Moxafrica has been working in North Korea since 2016 with our local partner, the Korean Red Cross Foundation (KRCF).
North Korea is a suitable location for our work because of the local tuberculosis epidemic and high rates of drug-resistance. Moxibustion is already used there in traditional 'Koryo' medicine (though not specifically for TB) and introducing this protocol was relatively straightforward. Over two trips, Moxafrica staff have trained over 100 health care workers in the moxibustion protocol and also the M-Test. (or 'Mukaino Method') of addressing structural imbalances.
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With our partners the KRCF, we have set up two studies to measure the efficacy of moxibustion as an adjunctive therapy.
OUR PLAN
Our Mission Statement is:
To investigate the use of moxibustion therapy as an adjunctive treatment of tuberculosis, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, particularly in resource-poor environments in the twenty-first century.
The Plan which we set for 2014 - 2017 was:
1 a) Complete Makerere University Phase II RCT "A Study of the Efficacy of Adjunctive Moxibustion in the Treatment of
Tuberculosis and publish a paper.
b) Take RCT data to Governments and NGOs that are working with Community Health Workers in accompaniment
model. Use RCT data and existing case studies of CHWs using moxibustion therapy to illustrate efficacy.
2 Set up or facilitate further pilot programs or studies investigating the efficacy of adjunctive moxibustion in the treatment
of Multi-Drug-Resistant and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis.
3 Continue to support CHW project in South Africa.
4 Develop the basic concept of 'field medicine'.
5 Establish Moxafrica-Japan office.
6 Facilitate international collaborations between TB and immunotherapy researchers to look further at moxa therapy.
7 Secure funding.
8 Foster small-scale sustainable micro industries for moxa growing, refining, delivering.
In 2009 Jenny Craig and Merlin Young went to Lyantonde, Uganda, on a fact finding trip. Lyantonde is a truck stop town four hours west of Kampala on the main arterial road connecting Rwanda and the Congo to East Africa and the Indian Ocean (MAP). It is also home to the first ever officially recorded case of AIDS in Africa. Since then a pilot study and then a Randomised Control Trial has been completed in the country.
The rainbow nation of South Africa is unfortunately the epicentre of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest recorded rates of DR-TBuberculosis including XDR-TB as well as a frightening proportion of patients co-infected with HIV and TB. Sadly one of the MDR hotspots of the country is in the townships of the Capetown Flats not far from beautiful Table Mountain. In this ever-expanding urban area of high population density and poor housing, there are also large fluid immigrant populations, as people come south from all over the African continent searching for employment . This significantly adds to the problems of controlling diseases such as HIV and TB.