Quinoline drugs have been used to treat malaria before artemisinin. However, after decades of clinical application of quinoline drugs, plasmodium has developed strong resistance to them, and the curative effect of the drugs has dropped sharply. People are looking forward to the emergence of new antimalarial drugs.
In the early 1960s, the global malaria epidemic was serious and difficult to control. During the Vietnam War, both American and Vietnamese troops suffered great losses. The anxious Vietnamese turned to China for help. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have ordered the concentration of national scientific and technological forces to jointly develop antimalarial drugs. A project code-named "523" came into being. As a member of this project, Tu Youyou and her team immediately started the research. By consulting herbal literature, "Artemisia annua" attracted the attention of Tu Youyou. As early as the 2nd century BC, Artemisia annua was recorded in the pre-Qin medical prescription "Fifty-two Diseases Prescription". Ge Hong's Elbow Backup Emergency Prescription in the Eastern Jin Dynasty first described the antimalarial effect of Artemisia annua. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in Ming Dynasty said that it could cure malaria, cold and heat.