“That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper,’ that spirit is most evident during times of great tragedy. It’s most evident during times of great hardship, it’s most when natural disasters strike. We all understand that we have to come together.”

– Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) on the campaign trail, Sept. 2, 2008

The world’s governments should spend more than $5 billion a year to prevent deaths from malaria. That’s nearly five times the current spending to fight the mosquito-borne disease, an international health consortium said this week.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership — comprised of United Nations agencies, the World Bank, leading drugmakers, and aid experts — stated that bolstering spending on bed nets, medicines and malaria tests could save 4.2 million lives a year by 2015.

The “Global Malaria Action Plan,” unveiled in the midst of a global financial crisis that may curb international aid budgets, asks for malaria spending to increase to $5.3 billion in 2009, $6.2 billion in 2010, and $5.1 billion annually from 2011-2020.

Yet, another $8.9 billion is needed in the next decade for research and development into malaria drugs, vaccines, and tests, plus vector-control measures to fight mosquitoes, the report said.

Total spending on malaria, from both national governments and international groups such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, was about $1.1 billion last year.

A spokesman for Roll Back Malaria said the disease now causes at least $12 billion in direct economic losses for African countries a year.

“Minimizing the malaria burden means more people at work, more children at school, and a break in the cycle of poverty,” the spokesman said.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Malaria is one of the world’s oldest infectious diseases.

Posted: September 25th, 2008 under Diseases, Malaria.
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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. is leading an international research collaboration that reckons it has found a connection between malaria and a liver gene that regulates the uptake of cholesterol.

The discovery, reported in scientific publication Cell Host & Microbe, is believed to make possible new  malaria treatments, including RNAi therapeutics.

Alnylam, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., undertook the study with Cenix BioScience GmbH in Germany and Portugal’s Instituto de Medicina Molecular.

Their research reports the discovery of a gene expressed by the liver that controls cholesterol uptake that appears to be linked to how malaria infections progress. The thought is that RNAi treatments could turn off the gene and prevent malaria infection from progressing.

Scientists believe that RNAi can be employed to turn off genes that cause disease.

Malaria would be a significant disease target. The disease kills 2 million people globally each year.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Managing Editor

Posted: September 11th, 2008 under Diseases, Malaria.
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North Korea has greatly reduced malaria infections throughout the communist enclave, but mosquitoes carrying the deadly disease are crossing the border and infecting hundreds each year in the South, a provincial governor said this week.

Malaria was “eradicated” on the Korean peninsula about 30 years ago but re-emerged in the poverty-stricken North in the 1990s due to poor sanitation.

Kim Moon-soo, governor of Gyeonggi province, which includes Seoul and shares a border with North Korea, visited the north this month to discuss food aid and ways to keep malaria under control.

“Based on the statistics that we have access to, it seems that the malaria cases in North Korea have been significantly reduced,” Kim said at a news briefing with reporters.

Kim said there were about 60,000 civilian infections in North Korea in 2003 while in 2007 the number was reduced to an estimated 7,430.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Mosquitos invading South Korea carry the deadly malaria bug, according to news reports.

Posted: May 27th, 2008 under Diseases, Malaria.
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Monsoon rains have now arrived in Burma, and thousands of homeless people are sleeping in the open on sodden ground 11 days after deadly Cyclone Nargis landed. Rice spoils in the damp air, and health officials are predicting “massive death and illness” from related epidemics.

The aid shipments that have arrived are backed up at Rangoon’s main airport, but officials fear a lack of warehouse space will expose them to the rain. Supplies of water, purification tablets, and equipment are stalled in neighboring countries, pending approval from the ruling military regime.

“I can’t think of a worse scenario for the development of water-borne infections than the one in Burma,” says Dr. William Bowie, an infectious disease expert. “Malnourished folk already have compromised immune systems.”

The weather is increasing the health threats.

“Where I am now there’s over 10,000 homeless people and it’s pouring rain,” Bridget Gardener, an International Red Cross official told reporters this week in the disaster zone of the Irrawaddy delta.

Two American relief flights arrived yesterday, following the landing of an Australian Air Force plane brimming with emergency supplies.

But Oxfam spokesperson Alexander Woollcombe says “air drops can only be partial and give the illusion that the situation is addressed.”

Experts say the risk of infection increases daily. Starving people are eating contaminated food and drink brackish water from streams awash with decomposing bodies of humans.

Cholera, malaria, and typhoid are among the leading likely diseases, as are hepatitis A and leptospirosis, a deadly bacterial disease.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Associate Managing Editor

Spoiled rice may kill thousands more in Burma.

Posted: May 14th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, Hepatitis, Malaria.
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Malaria is a remarkably resilient infectious disease, and is resurging because of the emergence of “drug-resistant parasites and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes,” according to reports from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“New approaches and strategies will be required to sustain the successes of control programs over the long term,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the NIH, said.

Scientists have made progress in understanding malaria parasite and mosquito biology and in translating these findings into techniques to prevent and treat disease.

According to Dr. B.F. Lee Hall, MD, PhD, chief of parasitology at NIAID, a promising malaria vaccine known as RTS,S has been shown to offer partial protection against malaria in studies among children and infants in Africa. A clinical trial conducted in 40 adult volunteers in Mali demonstrated that a second candidate malaria vaccine based on the malaria protein AMA-1 is safe and elicits a “strong immune response,” he said.

The control, elimination and eradication of malaria will require a long-term, sustained effort that will necessitate strengthening the many partnerships that already exist with the NIH and other governments and drug companies as well as forming new collaborations, said Fauci.

“The goals of these research partnerships in malaria are ambitious, and the challenges correspondingly formidable; however, the objectives are worthy of our greatest efforts and scientific minds. Together, the global community will continue to transform scientific advances into highly effective interventions against the ancient scourge of malaria, and eventually defeat this global disease,” said Fauci.

- by the Editors

For more information,

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Malaria/default.htm

Infection path of malaria. Source: Harvard Medical School.

Posted: April 25th, 2008 under Diseases, Impaired Immunity, Malaria.
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A researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has identified the threat of an emergent, highly virulent form of malaria, called monkey malaria, and wonders how well the disease is making the jump from animal to man.

In the April issue of Future Microbiology, Dr Thomas McCutchan of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease (NIAID) raises worries that this disease may pose a huge threat to humanity.

Malaria is a caused by protozoan parasites of the Plasmodium genus and is widespread in parts of the Americas, Asia and Africa. Malaria infections occur in more than 500 million people each year, with 1 to 3 million deaths. The parasite has two hosts in the course of its life cycle - a mosquito vector and vertebrate host. The parasites are transmitted to humans by female mosquitoes, multiplying within red corpuscles with consequential symptoms of anemia and fever.

At least ten species of Plasmodium can infect humans, but only four forms of specifically human malaria are believed to exist.  Now Dr McCutchan has raised the question - has a monkey malaria made that switch and become the fifth human malaria?

The parasitic organism responsible, Plasmodium knowlesi, is an established cause of monkey malaria. However, recent studies report high levels of infection in human populations in Borneo.

The problem seems, so far, largely to have been a silent one due to problems in accurate diagnosis. “At this point,” Dr. McCutchan says, “the study of P. knowlesi is extremely significant regardless of whether it has entered humans or remains a zoonosis. In either case, we face a health problem of potentially widespread significance and one that will present new problems for malaria control.”

– by the Editors

Monkey malaria an emerging threat to humans in Southeast Asia.

Posted: April 22nd, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, Malaria.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) this week said that new global weather patterns are causing the increase in the incidence of diseases. The spread of the disease raises the risk of painful, premature death for millions, particularly the poor in Asia.”Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are now found in areas where there was no malaria before,” said Shigeru Omi, the director of the WHO’s Western Pacific office.  “They are spreading to cooler climes from the tropics. For dengue, there are many other factors responsible for the rise of the mosquitoes. But I am sure that climate change is certainly playing one of the many roles, that much we can say,” Omi said.The theme for World Health Day 2008 — that’s today, Monday, April 7 — is climate change. Another U.N. agency, UNICEF, today issued a statement which warns that the impact of climate change could fall “disproportionately on women and children.”Most of the deaths due to disease being “amplified” by global climate change will happen in Asia, according to the WHO.  The Asia-Pacific region has already showed signs of “increased incidence of diseases such as malaria, diarrhea and malnutrition,” as well as and flooding due to changing weather patterns, says Omi.– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Dengue fever is spreading more quickly due to global climate conditions, WHO says.

Posted: April 7th, 2008 under Dengue Fever, Developing Diseases, Malaria.
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Scientists, public health workers, and police have worked together to stop alleged traders of fake “anti-malarial drugs” in southern China, according to foreign media reports. The project led to the seizure of a large quantity of counterfeit drugs. The seizure demonstrates the growing threat posed by fake pharmaceuticals and the complexities of tracking down those responsible its proliferation.

Called Operation Jupiter, the investigation was coordinated by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Regional Office, and the Wellcome Trust-University of Oxford Southeast Asian Tropical Medicine Research Program, in close cooperation with Chinese authorities.

Scientists from five other laboratories analyzed the composition of the fake drugs and their packaging. The results of this collaboration are published today in the medical journal PLoS Medicine.

Counterfeit anti-malarial drugs are an increasingly serious problem, particularly in South-East Asia and Africa. In countries with a large burden of malaria, such as Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, as many as “half of all artesunate” tablets—one of the most effective anti-malarial drugs—are counterfeit.

Most of the counterfeits examined as part of Operation Jupiter contained no artesunate. Some contained a wide range of potentially toxic wrong active ingredients. Counterfeiters sometimes included small amounts of artesunate in the tablets. This is to evade screening tests of drug quality, but these doses are too low to be effective, yet potent enough to contribute to malaria parasites becoming resistant to this class of drugs.

“Artesunate, as part of artemisinin-based combination therapy, is vital for malaria treatment and is one of the most effective weapons we have against this terrible scourge,” says Paul Newton of the Wellcome Trust-University of Oxford South East Asian Tropical Medicine Research Program. “If malaria becomes resistant to artesunate, the effect on public health in the tropics will be catastrophic.”

The evidence suggests that at least some of the counterfeit artesunate came from southern China, and this was supported by examination of the mineral calcite, found in some of the samples.

One suspect is alleged to have traded 240,000 blisterpacks of counterfeit artesunate, enough to “treat” almost a quarter of a million adults with a medicine with no activity against a potentially fatal disease. Whilst the Chinese authorities were able to seize 24,000 of these packs, the remainder are alleged to have been sold at crossings on the border of Yunnan and Burma, almost a half of all blisterpacks of artesunate sold to the region.

“Criminal investigations and legal action are important in disrupting and inhibiting the trade in fake medicines, but to be effective these will require financial support and resources,” says Newton.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Fake anti-malaria drugs proliferate in China, Africa.

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under Feature Stories, Malaria.
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The majority of patients who are afflicted with West Nile virus continue to experience symptoms “years after infection” and many may continue to experience these symptoms for the rest of their lives, according to research presented this week International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta.

“What we are finding is that about 60% of people, one year after severe infection with West Nile, still report symptoms,” says Kristy Murray of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Murray and her colleagues have been conducting a long-term, in-depth study of people in the Houston, Texas area who have been diagnosed with West Nile. They monitored 108 patients over a 5-year period. The disease is said to be somewhat similar to malaria.

Persistent symptoms of West Nile infection still impacted 60% of patients in the study at the end of the first year. Murray and her colleagues discovered that most, if not all, recovery appeared to take place in the first two years following infection.

“Once they hit two years it completely plateaus. If a patient has not recovered by that time, it is very likely the will never recover,” says Murray. Appoximately 40% of patients in the study continued to experience symptoms 5 years after infection.

Close to 80% of people who are infected with West Nile do not experience symptoms, experts cautioned.

“Those patients with ecephalitis were less likely to recover than those who had meningitis or uncomplicated fever,” says Murray.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, editorial director

Source: American Society for Microbiology

Image source: Los Angeles Department of Public Health.

Posted: March 19th, 2008 under Feature Stories, Malaria.
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