I looked up other news stories about this. Two I found added a few details to the blog post kindly submitted here.

http://scienceblog.com/56297/african-antimalarial-research-b...

http://contractresearch.pharmaceutical-business-review.com/n...

All the news stories so far are based mostly on a press release about the chemical moving into preclinical trials. The chemical is part of a category of chemicals with significant toxicity,

http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExSumPdf...

and it is VERY early in the stages of investigation to know whether or not this chemical, when used as a medically prescribed drug, will have benefits for malaria patients that outweigh whatever risks it may have. Effective drug therapies for infection by the malaria parasite are an important ongoing area of research, but as each new preliminary finding is reported, it is important to keep in mind the "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

written about by Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, and to check for follow-up research that shows actual clinical benefit in well controlled trials of human patients.

See also the recent blog post from the Science-Based Medicine group blog by a medical doctor, "Related by coincidence only? University and medical journal press releases versus journal articles,"

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/related-by-coi...

on the distinction between press releases and peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, and what each promises and what each delivers.