Malaria is a deadly disease spread by mosquitoes and is estimated to kill one person every 30 seconds, according to the World Health Organization. The majority victimized by this disease are children under the age of five, living in impoverished conditions throughout Africa . Yet, as the epidemic continues to escalate, more than 1.5 million people die from malaria disease each year, and more than 300 million cases are reported in over 90 countries worldwide.

In spite of these staggering statistics, an ancient Chinese herb known as artemisinin (also called ginghaosu) is proving to be a new weapon in the fight against this deadly disease. In recent test trials performed by the WHO, artemisinin-based drugs quickly reduced fevers and rapidly lowered blood-parasite levels, which can keep small outbreaks in mosquito-infested areas from becoming epidemics. Additional research findings showed the use of artemisinin was a cure for malaria in more than 90 percent of cases in certain countries.

Now that the holidays are over and the long nights of eating and merry-making are behind us, we can start worrying about all the weight we probably gained.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 97.1 million adults are overweight, and 39.8 million of those people also meet the criteria for obesity. America seems to suffer from this disorder more acutely than other countries.

While new AIDS treatment has become available in the decades since it first hit the national scene in the early 1980s, there is still no cure for what has rapidly become a 20 th - and now 21 st - century plague.

In 2002 alone, AIDS killed 3 million people and infected 5 million more worldwide. What was first described as "the gay man's disease" now shows itself to be an equal-opportunity killer: Half of all AIDS cases are women, and 80 percent of the new infections between 1997 and 2000 occurred in people under 29 years of age.

For the 42 million people who reported having AIDS in 2002, alternative therapy in health and medicine such as Chinese herbs and acupuncture can offer relief as a new AIDS treatment .