26.11.2007
The Right Drug at the Right Time - The Power of the Affordable Medicines Facility - malaria (AMFm) to Save Lives [APPMG Report] — (English)
The report focuses on a fundamental gap in delivering effective malaria control to those most in need. Specifically, it looks at the potential of an Affordable Medicines Facility to bring down the price of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) by ensuring widespread use and discouraging use of single drugs which may accelerate development of resistance to treatment...
Acclaimed Producer Firdaus Kharas Fighting Malaria With Animation Campaign Initial production funding from the Canadian Red Cross [PR Web - United States] — (English)
Firdaus Kharas, a multi-award winning animation producer and director, is pleased to announce the creation of animated Public Service Announcements to provide an educational tool for those trying to reduce malaria infections in Africa. Initial funding of $25,000 is being provided by the Canadian Red Cross to support the project...
Nation Eradication du Paludisme - Victor Makwenge Kaput dicte une nouvelle vision [La Prospérité (Kinshasa) via AllAfrica.com] — (Français)
Le Ministère de la Santé Publique en collaboration avec ses partenaires traditionnels a organisé samedi 24 novembre 2007, en la salle polyvalente de l'OMS, une matinée de réflexion sur la nouvelle vision de la lutte contre le paludisme en RD Congo...
25.11.2007
Maggie Mansueto of Richardson: World peace is not so far away [Dallas Morning News - Dallas,TX,USA] — (English)
Can you imagine that such a disease still exists in the modern world? I fought my terror and stayed calm to comfort him and assure him that even though I was a world away, he was not alone in this fight...
New malaria drug rolls out Dec 1 [Malawi's Daily Times - Malawi] — (English)
The new malaria drug, Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT) would be distributed starting December 1, 2007, a day after the Minister of Health and Population Marjorie Ngaunje launches it in Ntchisi...
Around 27,000 people suffering from malaria [The News - International - Pakistan] — (English)
Around 26,000 to 27,000 people suffer from malaria every year in Sindh, said the Director Malaria Control Programme (MCP), Sindh, Dr Nawaz Ali Kallar...
23.11.2007
MOZAMBIQUE: Rains, pregnancy and AIDS - a recipe for malaria [IRIN PLUS NEWS] — (English)
In the first six months of 2007, 2.5 million cases of malaria were recorded after floods hit the country, and 1,518 patients died, according to the Ministry of Health...
Southern Africa: President to Launch SADC Malaria Week Today [The Herald (Harare) via AllAfrica.com] — (English)
President Mugabe will today officially launch the Sadc Malaria Week at Chinotimba Stadium in the resort town of Victoria Falls...
Sénégal: Lutte contre le paludisme - des sites de surveillance sentinelle dans la vallée [Le Soleil (Dakar) via AllAfrica.com] — (Français)
Le bond qualitatif qu'a connu le Programme national de lutte contre le paludisme (Pnlp) dans le secteur de la santé entre dans sa deuxième phase, dans les zones endémiques. Le Pnlp par un important élan de mobilisation qui aura touché tous les aspects de la vie des populations rurales permettant une nette amélioration de la couverture sanitaire, entame une nouvelle approche, celle des sites de surveillance sentinelle contre le paludisme dans toute la vallée du fleuve Sénégal...
22.11.2007
N'Dour says 'war on malaria' is the one US should wage [AFP] — (English)
"If the United States wants to win a war, it ought to be the war on malaria," quips Africa's best-known singing star Youssou N'Dour...
Youssou N'Dour aux USA: une seule guerre à gagner, contre le paludisme [TV5] — (Français)
Si les Etats-Unis veulent gagner une guerre, c'est la guerre contre le paludisme...
Malaria Consortium Supports Launch Of Affordable Medicines Facility For Malaria In New Report [Medical News Today (press release) - UK] — (English)
Today the All Party Parliamentary Malaria Group publishes a report on a new mechanism aimed at making malaria treatment affordable in the developing world. This new mechanism aims to increase access to life saving artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) by reducing the cost of the drugs to patients in poor countries who need them...
BUY-A-NET: Senator Mobina Jaffer Saves Lives From Malaria in Uganda [News Blaze - United] — (English)
Debra Lefebvre, Founder, BUY-A-NET Malaria Prevention Group (BAN) today announced Senator Mobina Jaffer will participate in a net distribution event at Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda...
Healthier mosquitoes offer promise of less malaria [Savannah Morning News - Savannah,GA,USA] — (English)
Instead of trying to repel these insects or kill them outright, a Georgia Southern University professor is developing a product that doses mosquitoes with medicine to rid them of their parasites and pathogens. It leaves the bugs buzzing...
Malaria cripples Ghana’s health budget [afrol News - Oslo,Norway] — (English)
The cost of malaria treatment is crippling Ghana's health budget, Ghana’s Health Minister, Major (retired) Courage Quashigah, told an annual health summit in the capital Accra on Tuesday. The cost of treating malaria this year amounted to US $772.4 million. This amount that equalled to the Ghana's entire health budget for 2008, represents 10% of the country's entire Gross Domestic Product for 2006...
War on malaria [Sowetan - Soweto,South Africa] — (English)
Pregnant women and children in rural areas of northern KwaZulu-Natal are at the risk of being infected with malaria during the rainy season...
Identification of the main malaria vectors in the Anopheles gambiae species complex using a TaqMan real-time PCR assay [Malaria Journal 2007, 6:155 (22 November 2007)] — (English)
This paper describes an improved method for accurate molecular identification of specimens of the An. gambiae species complex ...
Sequence diversity and natural selection at domain I of the apical membrane antigen 1 among Indian Plasmodium falciparum populations [Malaria Journal 2007, 6:154 (22 November 2007)] — (English)
The level of genetic diversity and diversifying selection were higher in Assam, Orissa, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands populations as compared to Uttar Pradesh and Goa. The amounts of gene flow among these populations were moderate. The data reported here will be valuable for the development of AMA1-based malaria vaccine...
21.11.2007
In the malaria fight, it's people or the environment [Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK] — (English)
When you're faced with a disease like malaria, which still kills at least a million people a year, what do you prioritise - the environment or people's lives? ...
Trip into the unknown [Published online 21 November 2007 | Nature 450, 471 (2007)] — (English)
Opened with great fanfare last month by Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, the factory will manufacture drugs to treat HIV/AIDS and malaria for markedly less than the cost of imported drugs. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in Uganda, fewer than 38% of the patients with HIV/AIDS that need antiretroviral drugs receive them. But although Africa carries the largest burden of HIV/AIDS and malaria in the world, it produces only 1% of the world's drugs, according to the World Bank...
ASA fights malaria epidemic [Arizona Daily - United States ] — (English)
UA students' group working to raise funds for affected Africans...
Congo-Kinshasa: Selon OMS - Un enfant africain meurt du paludisme toutes les trente secondes [Le Potentiel (Kinshasa) via AllAfrica.com] — (Français)
Près de dix millions d'enfants de moins de cinq ans meurent chaque année, ce qui représente plus de 1 000 décès d'enfants par heure alors que beaucoup pourraient survivre face à la menace à laquelle ils sont exposés et se développer à condition d'avoir accès à des interventions simples et peu coûteuses. Les moustiquaires imprégnées d'insecticide permettent d'éviter la transmission et d'accroître la survie de l'enfant-africain...
20.11.2007
Growing Up Stronger and Healthier in Madagascar [American Red Cross - United States ] — (English)
Health workers and community volunteers come together in Madagascar as part of a national health campaign to prevent measles and malaria...
Full Detailed Information on Malaria [American Chronicle - Beverly Hills,CA,USA] — (English)
Malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and an enormous public-health problem. The disease is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium...
Mum would have been so proud [The Sun - London,UK] — (English)
But this week Josie Russell revealed her new role firmly in the public eye – as a campaigner in the fight against malaria...
Uganda: HIV And Malaria Linked [New Vision (Kampala) via AllAfrica.com] — (English)
Unexpectedly high levels of HIV infection are being found in adults seeking treatment for malaria in Uganda...
Articles requiring subscription
Intermittent Preventive Therapy with Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine during Pregnancy: Seeking Information on Optimal Dosing Frequency [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1574-6] — (English)
The malaria-control community has long recommended a "package" of interventions for African settings for both reduction in transmission through vector control and prevention and treatment of infection and disease with appropriate antimalarial drugs. In malaria-endemic countries in Africa, malaria during pregnancy has a major impact on both the woman's health and the newborn's birth weight, particularly in the first and second pregnancies. Strategies to control malaria in pregnant African women follow this package approach and rely on transmission prevention (especially with insecticide-treated bed nets [ITNs]), case management of malaria illness (a relatively uncommon event in these women, who have substantial acquired immunity), and intermittent preventive therapy of malaria during pregnancy (IPTp) to prevent the adverse consequence of usually asymptomatic placental infections. IPTp involves the administration of a curative course of an antimalarial drug at predefined intervals after quickening (the mother's recognition of fetal movement, which occurs early during the second trimester) and given at least 1 month apart without determining whether the woman has parasitemi...
Inferiority of Single-Dose Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine Intermittent Preventive Therapy for Malaria during Pregnancy among HIV-Positive Zambian Women [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1577-1584] — (English)
Single-dose SP was a common result of trying to implement the standard 2-dose regimen and was inferior to all other dosing regimens. At a programmatic level, this implies that monthly SP IPTp may ultimately be more effective than the standard regimen by reducing the risk of inadvertently underdosing mothers...
Two-Dose versus Monthly Intermittent Preventive Treatment of Malaria with Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine in HIV-Seropositive Pregnant Zambian Women [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1585-1594] — (English)
In an area of mesoendemicity in Zambia, monthly SP IPTp was not more efficacious than the standard 2-dose regimen for the prevention of placental malaria or adverse birth outcomes. IPTp policy recommendations need to take into account local malaria transmission patterns and the prevalence of HIV...
Intermittent Preventive Treatment against Malaria in Infants in Gabon—A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1595-1602] — (English)
The intervention was efficacious, producing a reduction in risk for anemia but a smaller effect against malaria. It is a valuable additional tool to control malaria in a highly vulnerable age group. Remaining important questions are currently being addressed in further studies...
Whole-Transcriptome Analysis of Plasmodium falciparum Field Isolates: Identification of New Pathogenicity Factors [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1603-1612] — (English)
This is the first attempt to identify genes involved in parasite pathogenic mechanisms against human ECs. The finding of PALPFs illuminates perspectives for novel therapeutic strategies against cerebral complications of malaria...
Seasonal Carriage of pfcrt and pfmdr1 Alleles in Gambian Plasmodium falciparum Imply Reduced Fitness of Chloroquine-Resistant Parasites [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1613-1619] — (English)
The fitness cost of CQ resistance works against the persistence of resistant parasites through the dry season...
Toll-Like Receptor Modulation of Murine Cerebral Malaria Is Dependent on the Genetic Background of the Host [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:1553-1564] — (English)
Infection with Plasmodium berghei ANKA is a well-established model of human cerebral malaria (CM). We show herein that Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling influences the development of lethal CM in P. berghei ANKA–infected mice. Modulation of outcome was dependent on genetic background, such that deletion of myeloid differentiation factor (MyD) 88 on the susceptible C57BL/6 background resulted in resistance to CM, whereas deletion of MyD88 on the resistant BALB/c background led to increased mortality. Our data show that MyD88 influenced the production of T helper–polarizing cytokines, including interferon (IFN)–, interleukin (IL)–4, and IL-17, as well as the total number of Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells in a manner dependent on host genetic background. In addition, mRNA levels of IFN-, CXCL10, and CXCL9 were strongly up-regulated in the brains of susceptible wild-type but not MyD88-/- infected mice. These results suggest that TLR signaling and host genetic background influences the pathogenesis of CM via modulation of cytokine production and Treg cell numbers...
Anopheles gambiae s.s. breeding in polluted water bodies in urban Lagos, southwestern Nigeria [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 241–244] — (English)
These results indicate that An. gambiae s.s. is adapting to a wide range
of water pollution in this urban area. The survival of the mosquito in widespread polluted water
bodies across Lagos metropolis could be responsible for the rise in the incidence of malaria...
Morphological method for sexing anopheline larvae [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 245–249] — (English)
The sex separation at the larval stage will provide a clue for embryonic
origin of sex organs, insecticide selection at the larval stage, sex related genes, male sterility and
other measures...
Prevalence of malaria as co-infection in HIV-infected individuals in a malaria endemic area of southeastern Nigeria [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 250–254] — (English)
The present study observed different prevalence rates of P. falciparum
malaria amongst the three groups. The prevalence was tripled in symptomatic HIV seropositive group.
This shows a clear departure from possible obtainable prevalence of malaria infection alone in this
malaria endemic area. Due to the mortality rates associated with malaria infection in an endemic
area, it may be necessary that routine malaria screening be adopted as part of the management policy
to check the co-infection...
Change of serum transferrin receptor due to malarial infection, an experiment in Plasmodium gallinaceum infected chicken model [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 255–258] — (English)
Although the trend of increase was observed but no significance was observed (p >
0.05). The results from this pilot study can be a good basic data for the further study in this area...
Age as a risk factor for thrombocytopenia and anaemia in children treated for acute uncomplicated falciparum malaria [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 266–271] — (English)
While thrombocytopenia was the most common haematological finding and may be of
diagnostic importance, anaemia and leucocytosis were more common in the under fives...
Dynamics of malaria in Bikaner, Rajasthan, India (1975–2006) [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 281–284] — (English)
Epidemiological scenario of malaria differs from state to state and region to region and the data of a
country cannot represent the situation in different regions...
Impact of maternal Plasmodium falciparum malaria and haematological parameters on pregnancy and its outcome in southeastern Nigeria [J Vector Borne Dis 44, December 2007, pp. 285–290] — (English)
Malaria during pregnancy is a serious problem in sub-Saharan Africa, affecting an estimated 24 million
pregnant women...
Malaria-parasite mitochondrial dehydrogenases as drug targets: too early to write the obituary [Trends in Parasitology, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 19 November 2007] — (English)
In a recent study, Painter et al. stated that Plasmodium falciparum mitochondrial dehydrogenases, with the exception of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHOD), are not viable chemotherapeutic targets. We believe that this far-reaching claim is an over-interpretation of their data in a period when new drug discovery leads are urgently required...
Molecular diagnostic and surveillance tools for global malaria control [Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 19 November 2007] — (English)
Malaria is the most devastating parasitic infection in the world, annually causing over 1 million deaths and extensive morbidity. The global burden of malaria has increased over the last several decades, as have rates of imported malaria into non-endemic regions. Rapid and accurate diagnostics are a crucial component of malaria control strategies, and epidemiological surveillance is required to monitor trends in malaria prevalence and antimalarial drug resistance. Conventional malaria diagnostic and surveillance tools can be cumbersome and slow with limitations in both sensitivity and specificity. New molecular techniques have been developed in an attempt to overcome these restrictions. These molecular techniques are discussed with regard to their technical advantages and disadvantages, with an emphasis on the practicality of implementation in malaria-endemic and non-endemic regions...
Triggers and tricks of Plasmodium sexual development [Current Opinion in Microbiology, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 19 November 2007] — (English)
Irrespective of the tremendous suffering caused by malaria, a Plasmodium infection by pathogenic blood stages is only transient and an obligate step toward the Anopheles vector where sexual reproduction and genetic recombination of the unicellular parasite takes place. Recent expression profiling studies identified the molecular make-up of female and male gametocytes. Differential promoters and translational repression through mRNA binding by a female-specific helicase help to fine-tune the expression of these sexual stage-specific genes. However, we are only just beginning to discover the triggers that initiate gametocytogenesis and the developmental programs that drive sexual development...
Development and characterization of a standardized ELISA including a reference serum on each plate to detect antibodies induced by experimental malaria vaccines [Vaccine, In Press, Uncorrected Proof, Available online 20 November 2007 ] — (English)
Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has been widely used to measure antibody titers for evaluating the immunogenicity of a vaccine. However, there is as yet no generally accepted way of expressing the ELISA results in the case of experimental vaccines, since there is usually no uniform standard. Both end point and single dilution methods have significant disadvantages. In this paper, we obtained reproducible data with fewer dilutions of samples by addition of serially diluted standard serum to each ELISA plate. Since this ELISA method gives reliable antibody titer with less labor than other methods, it can strongly support vaccine development...
Prepared in cooperation with WHO ANGOLA INFO.
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