Financing Global Health. Malaria hotspots 'need new approach' 14 April 2013Last updated at 19:37 ET A mosquito feeding on human blood Novel measures are needed to tackle malaria hotspots in countries with low levels of the disease, scientists say. Countries such as Malaysia and Bhutan have seen malaria levels fall - but pockets of infection remain, mainly among men living or working outdoors. Instead, treated hammocks or clothing could be more useful. 'Hot pops' In countries where there are high levels of malaria, it is largely women and young children who are affected. But in places where there has been success in reducing overall levels, it is adult men who bear most risk. Continue reading the main story More sophisticated and targeted approaches to identifying those people who are infected, and responding promptly and effectively, must be put in place” End QuoteProf Sir Richard Feachem University of California, San Francisco The Lancet paper suggests this might be linked to the conflict in the island, which ran from 1983 to 2009.
Malarial burdens. Malaria No More UK – Ending Malaria Deaths. Malaria Centre | malaria.lshtm.ac.uk. Dried Whole Plant Artemisia annua as an Antimalarial Therapy. Drugs are primary weapons for reducing malaria in human populations. However emergence of resistant parasites has repeatedly curtailed the lifespan of each drug that is developed and deployed. Currently the most effective anti-malarial is artemisinin, which is extracted from the leaves of Artemisia annua. Due to poor pharmacokinetic properties and prudent efforts to curtail resistance to monotherapies, artemisinin is prescribed only in combination with other anti-malarials composing an Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT).
Low yield in the plant, and the added cost of secondary anti-malarials in the ACT, make artemisinin costly for the developing world. Figures Citation: Elfawal MA, Towler MJ, Reich NG, Golenbock D, Weathers PJ, et al. (2012) Dried Whole Plant Artemisia annua as an Antimalarial Therapy. Editor: Georges Snounou, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France Received: September 3, 2012; Accepted: November 21, 2012; Published: December 20, 2012 Copyright: © 2012 Elfawal et al. To outsmart malarial drug resistance, research team develops new whole-plant strategy.
Malaria brings misery and death to millions in the developing world each year, and fighting it keeps medical researchers up at night because the mosquito-borne parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes the deadliest form of the disease, has developed resistance to every drug thrown at it. Resistance has cut short the useful life of nearly every therapy tried so far, experts say.
But now molecular parasitologist Stephen Rich at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has led a research team who report a promising new low-cost combined therapy with a much higher chance of outwitting P. falciparum than current modes. He and plant biochemist Pamela Weathers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), with research physician Doug Golenbock at the UMass Medical School, also in Worcester, have designed an approach for treating malaria based on a new use of Artemisia annua, a plant employed for thousands of years in Asia to treat fever. Study Roundup: Cell Phones May Help Prevent Infectious Disease Epidemics. Africa's changing mosquito dynamics. Migrants and malaria. HANOI, 28 September 2012 (IRIN) - Lack of funding to monitor migrant patterns in Vietnam risks worsening the spread of drug-resistant malaria, health experts said on the sidelines of a World Health Organization (WHO) annual regional meeting in Hanoi which closed on 28 September.
Resistance to the anti-malaria drug artemisinin can spread due to widespread migration across borders and internally within Vietnam, said John Ehrenberg, director of Combating Communicable Diseases in WHO’s regional office in Manila. Reports of drug resistance - when an artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) takes longer to treat infections - have been recorded along the Thailand-Myanmar border, in Myanmar and in southern Vietnam. Studies showing drug resistance along the Thai- Cambodian border date back to 2005. Migrant populations have to be monitored to control the resurgence of malaria as well as new cases of drug resistance, said Nguyen Manh Hung, the director-general of the institute. mb/pt/cb. Notre Dame researchers part of team that discovered potentially dangerous new malaria mosquito. Public release date: 28-Sep-2012 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Frank Collinsfrank@nd.edu 574-631-9245University of Notre Dame University of Notre Dame entomologists are part of a team of researchers that recently discovered a potentially dangerous new malaria-transmitting mosquito.
The as yet unnamed, and previously unreported, mosquito breeds in the western areas of Kenya and has an unknown DNA match to any of the existing malaria-transmitting species. The Anopheles species of mosquitoes which transmits malaria in Africa is already widely studied by researchers. It prefers to rest indoors during the day and feed on humans during the night.
Although the new species has never been implicated in the transmission of malaria, new discoveries in its biting habits pose a threat because it was found to be active outdoors and prefers to bite people earlier in the evening, soon after sunset, when people are not protected by current malaria control techniques. [ Print | E-mail. Chemist develops new synthesis of most useful, yet expensive, antimalarial drug. In 2010 malaria caused an estimated 665,000 deaths, mostly among African children. Now, chemists at Indiana University have developed a new synthesis for the world's most useful antimalarial drug, artemisinin, giving hope that fully synthetic artemisinin might help reduce the cost of the live-saving drug in the future. Effective deployment of ACT, or artemisinin-based combination therapy, has been slow due to high production costs of artemisinin.
The World Health Organization has set a target "per gram" cost for artemisinin of 25 cents or less, but the current cost is about $2.40 per gram, and production of low-cost semi-synthetic artemisinin has yet to materialize. "In 2005, the WHO claimed that the structure of artemisinin was too complex for cost-effective synthesis," said IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences chemistry professor Silas Cook. "We saw this as a natural challenge to the creativity and tenacity of organic chemists. " "There is still work to be done. South Africa: SA's Malaria Plan Lauded. Pretoria — South Africa plans to eliminate the spread of malaria within its borders by the year 2018, President Jacob Zuma said.
He was speaking at an African Union event in which South Africa was granted an award for dealing with the spread of malaria in the country. Zuma confirmed South Africa would continue to use Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT) insecticide to control Malaria. In 1996, South Africa decided not to use DDT in its malaria Vector Control Programme following pressure from environmental groups for it not to be used.
Zuma said this resulted in huge increases of malaria cases in the country. Malaria increased from a baseline of approximately 10 000 cases in 1995 to 64 622 in the year 2000. "The cause of this increase was mainly due to the particular species that transmitted malaria, which was once eradicated with DDT, had reappeared and was resistant to other types of insecticides. " The Department of Health decided to return to the use of DDT in 2000. Health / Medicine & Research : Malaria-causing parasite found in Andamans.
Researchers have located a new malaria-causing parasite — Plasmodium Knowlesi — for the first time in humans in India. A team of researchers, consisting of Manoj Kumar Das of the National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR), Shiv S. Singh of G.B. Pant Hospital, Port Blair, Rupesh K. Tyagi and Yagya D. Mr. From the infected monkeys that serve as its hosts, this parasite gets transmitted to humans through the Leucosphyrus group of Anopheles mosquitoes that serve as vectors, Mr. Till date there has been no confirmatory report about any Plasmodium Knowlesi infection in the mainland. It is likely that the parasite migrated to the islands from neighbouring south-east Asian countries, which have similar flora and fauna. Poachers from Thailand and Indonesia are said to secretly visit the islands.
It was concluded that a larger populace in south-east Asia may be infected by the parasite, or this simian malaria, than the reported cases so far. Malaria Journal. Malaria on rise in South. BANGKOK, 23 January 2013 (NNT) - Seven southern provinces are witnessing an increase in malaria cases, with the biggest number of patients reported in Surat Thani and Ranong. The Disease Control Office in Nakhon Si Thammarat said last year, a total of 2,887 cases of malaria were reported with 1 fatality. This year, 25 people in the southern region have contracted the mosquito-borne disease within the first two weeks of the year. The office’s statement suggested that in Thailand, malaria infection is common in rural, forested areas near the borders with neighboring countries, such as Myanmar and Cambodia. Humans contract malaria from the bite of a mosquito infected with the parasite, with symptoms generally developing two weeks after the first contact.
Symptoms which include headache, fever, chills and fatigue may appear in cycles and may come and go at different intensities. SMS Project Fights Malaria In Africa - Healthcare - Mobile & Wireless. IBM, Vodafone, and Novartis are using text messages to manage supplies of anti-malarial drugs in Tanzania. IBM interns are teaming up with Novartis and Vodafone to use text messaging and the Web to fight malaria in Africa. The three companies, along with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, are piloting a project called SMS for Life to use text messaging and Web sites built with Lotus Live collaboration tools to track and manage supplies of anti-malarial drugs, IBM said.
The program is running a five-month pilot in 135 villages in Tanzania, where healthcare staff receive automated text messages that prompt them to check remaining stock of anti-malarial drugs each week. Then, staff reply to a database in the UK with current stock levels via text messages sent through a toll-free number, so deliveries can be made before supplies run out. During the first few weeks of the program, the number of health clinics that ran out of drugs was reduced by as much as 75%.
More Insights. UK Imported Malaria. Fighting malaria with engineered symbiotic bacteria from vector mosquitoes. Africa: United Against Malaria. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has named the United Against Malaria (UAM) campaign as an official social program of the 2013 Orange Africa Cup of Nations. Highlighted at the Orange Africa Cup of Nations 2013 playoff draw in Johannesburg this week, in conjunction with the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the South African Football Association (SAFA), the role of the tournament in disseminating messages about the prevention and treatment of malaria to millions of African football fans was reinforced.
"In order for Africa to compete on the global football pitch, we must have players and communities that are free of malaria," said Mr. Hicham El Amrani, Secretary General of CAF. "We are committed to using the popularity of the 2013 Orange Africa Cup of Nations tournament to raise awareness and increase the fight against this devastating disease.
" Although preventable and treatable, malaria kills a child in Africa every 60 seconds. Mapping identifies best targets for malaria prevention. © David Snyder/ZUMA Children in certain parts of Africa could benefit from prophylactic use of malaria drugs. A slim but substantial swathe of Africa stands to gain from a new strategy in malaria control. Pre-emptive treatment of children living in regions where the mosquito-transmitted disease is prevalent only during the rainy season could avert 11 million cases and 50,000 deaths a year. The estimates are based on the world’s first guidance on seasonal malaria chemoprevention, issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March. The guidance gives a broad stamp of approval to governments and donors seeking to use anti-malaria drugs as prophylactics in African children, and the analysis pinpoints where the strategy would be most effective, says Brian Greenwood, an infectious-disease physician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and co-author of the analysis, which is published today in Nature Communications1. from Ref 1.
Mapping identifies best targets for malaria prevention. Parasites hint at antimalarial resistance in Africa. Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation. A team of researchers from Canada and the United Kingdom studied parasites from travellers who returned to Canada with malaria after trips abroad between April 2008 and January 2011. They found that 11 of the 28 parasites grown in the laboratory had a mutation that made them resistant to artemether, one of the artemisinin group of antimalarials. All 11 came from Africa (from Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania), the researchers reported last month (27 April) in Malaria Journal. "We are seeing statistical evidence of resistance in the test tube," author Sanjeev Krishna, a researcher at the University of London, United Kingdom, told SciDev.Net. "If this progresses, and becomes more severe and established, it is likely to cause resistance in terms of treatment failures.
" Mathematical model developed to predict malaria outbreaks. [ADDIS ABABA] Ethiopian and Norwegian researchers have developed a mathematical model that can identify conditions that increase the likelihood of a malaria outbreak up to two months ahead of its occurrence. The computer model, Open Malaria Warning (OMaWa), incorporates hydrological, meteorological, mosquito-breeding and land-use data to determine when and where outbreaks are likely to occur. Torleif Markussen Lunde, one of the model's developers and a researcher at Norway’s University of Bergen, told SciDev.Net that the model made direct use of the limited real-time information available in typical rural areas.
"The model also reproduces observed mosquito species composition in Africa. It is the first time this has been done with a biophysical model. We are now looking at which areas in Africa the model can be applied," he said. Predictions made by the model compared favourably with observations from field trials and health clinics, the researchers said. Forecasting Malaria. Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership – Country Facts. ALMA. Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership - the global framework for coordinated action against malaria.
New discoveries about severe malaria. Progress Made In Possible Vaccine Against Malaria. HPA reports 22 per cent increase in malaria cases returning from the Indian sub-continent. Malaria surge feared. New highland distribution records of multiple Anopheles species in the Ecuadorian Andes. El mosquito de la malaria llega a los Andes del Ecuador. Detecting malaria early to save lives: New optical technique promises rapid and accurate diagnosis. Risk factors for mortality from imported falciparum malaria in the UK over 20 years: observational study - NeLM. Roll Back Malaria Partnership: 2012 Roadmaps. Vivax malaria more deadly than thought, say scientists. Plasmodium vivax clinical malaria is commonly observed in Duffy-negative Malagasy people — PNAS. How text messaging can help control malaria.
Pyramax receives positive opinion from the EMA. Pyramax® receives positive opinion from the EMA | MMV. Medicines for Malaria Venture | MMV. Estimating global malaria incidence. New estimates of malaria deaths: concern and opportunity. Malaria kills twice as many people as previously thought, research finds | Society. Malaria death toll disputed. Malaria may kill far more people than we thought - health - 03 February 2012. Global malaria mortality between 1980 and 2010: a systematic analysis. Global malaria mortality between 1980 and 2010: a systematic analysis - NeLM. 'Test and Treat' model offers new strategy for eliminating malaria. RH5 - New approach to malaria vaccine. RH5 malaria vaccine shows early promise. New candidate vaccine neutralizes all tested strains of malaria parasite. Global warming wilts malaria. Malaria - IAMAT.