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Malaria in the News

Africa's World Cup Stars Unite To Fight Malaria

19.01.2010

Read this issue and previous issues online.

Announcements / Press Releases

United Against Malaria Celebrates African Cup of Nations [RBM, UAM] — (English)
Partners Gather in Angola to Highlight Football’s Fight against Malaria and Launch United Against Malaria Public Service Announcements...

First steps taken toward the development of a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine [PATH MVI Press release] — (English)
PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative announces collaboration with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Sabin Vaccine Institute...

HAITI EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE [UN Foundation] — (English)
Two days after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti, Vice President of Global Health Dr. Daniel Carucci traveled to Haiti to deliver medical supplies, and will continue to assess the situation on the ground to determine the best way to help the UN’s emergency response...

Disease control in Haiti after the earthquake [TropIKA.net] — (English)
The scale of the tragedy facing Haiti is hard to grasp; estimates of the number of dead have now reached 50,000 and the destruction of infrastructure is reported to be immense. This is a country where geography and history seem to have conspired to make it both prone to disaster and poorly placed to respond when catastrophe strikes...

More Life-saving Bed Nets Sent to Refugees than Ever Before [Nothing But Nets] — (English)
The National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares, ESPN’s Rick Reilly, and Nothing But Nets supporters beat tough economy and protect more than one million refugees in Africa from malaria...

Mosquito nets protect millions of Congolese children from Malaria [SOS Children] — (English)
Two million children under five and their families will be among 10 million people to get a free mosquito net for their bed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Free nets have been handed out for months, in a push by the United Nations Children’s fund (UNICEF) and its partners, to give out 5.5 million bed nets to 1.8 million households in Oriental and Maniema provinces. The work in Congo is part of a wider United Nations initiative started last year that aims to provide bed nets to protect against malaria to everyone who needs them by the end of 2010...

19.01.2010

18.01.2010

17.01.2010

16.01.2010

15.01.2010

14.01.2010

13.01.2010 and previous

Articles requiring subscription

The genetic map of Artemisia annua L. identifies loci affecting yield of the antimalarial drug artemisinin [Science. 2010 Jan 15;327(5963):328-31] — (English)
Artemisinin is a plant natural product produced by Artemisia annua and the active ingredient in the most effective treatment for malaria. Efforts to eradicate malaria are increasing demand for an affordable, high-quality, robust supply of artemisinin. We performed deep sequencing on the transcriptome of A. annua to identify genes and markers for fast-track breeding. Extensive genetic variation enabled us to build a detailed genetic map with nine linkage groups. Replicated field trials resulted in a quantitative trait loci (QTL) map that accounts for a significant amount of the variation in key traits controlling artemisinin yield. Enrichment for positive QTLs in parents of new high-yielding hybrids confirms that the knowledge and tools to convert A. annua into a robust crop are now available...

Plant science. The botanical solution for malaria [Science. 2010 Jan 15;327(5963):279-80] — (English)
Attempts to efficiently extract sufficient quantities have been slowly improving. Now Graham et al. have paved the way to fast-track breeding varieties of the A. annua plant with highly desirable genetic traits. On page 328 of this issue, the authors report a genetic map of the plant and identify key loci that could improve agricultural yields, decrease production costs, ensure a steady global supply of the drug, and improve grower confidence in the crop...

Big hurdles remain in Africa's fight against malaria [The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 10, Issue 1, Page 10, January 2010 ] — (English)
Although 90% of malaria deaths occur in Africa, the fight against the disease has never looked as hopeful, according to speakers at the fifth pan-African Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) conference in Nairobi, Kenya on Nov 1—6. Increased funding for malaria research has enabled a remarkable rise in the number of new medicines being developed, more people have access to insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs), and bringing malaria under control and even elimination of the disease seem to be in sight...

Environmental factors and malaria transmission risk [The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 15 - 16, January 2010] — (English)
Substantial reduction in malaria mortality worldwide is a major goal for public-health officials. As the authors of this book rightly point out, this can only be achieved by having a well prepared and responsive health-care system. This is something that Yazoumé Yé and colleagues feel could be improved by having an early warning system for malaria, and they propose that the model presented contributes to the development of such a system...

Host immunity as a determinant of treatment outcome in Plasmodium falciparum malaria [The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 51 - 59, January 2010 ] — (English)
Host immunity is an important but poorly understood determinant of antimalarial efficacy, influencing the outcome of prevention and treatment trials. Variations in host immunity might explain why factors such as host genetics, age, pregnancy, infection with HIV, parasite density, and malaria transmission intensity, can raise or lower apparent cure rates. Recently, attempts have been made to characterise immunological correlates of treatment outcome in Plasmodium falciparum malaria, but not yet for Plasmodium vivax. A better understanding of such correlates might improve trials of antimalarial drugs and provide leads for vaccine development. Greater understanding of the relation between host immunity and treatment outcome is crucial to making informed choices about the use of safe but partly effective drugs for malaria prevention in children and pregnant women. With increasing malaria control efforts worldwide, declining population immunity might alter drug response profiles. Improved methods for assessing antimalarial immunity will strengthen malaria control efforts...

Affordable medicines facility for malaria: reasonable or rash? [The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9709, Page 121, 9 January 2010] — (English)
Ambrose Talisuna and colleagues (Oct 10, p 1224) describe the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria (AMFm) as a way of scaling up effective new malaria treatments in poor countries. AMFm will subsidise new, effective antimalarials to be sold in ordinary shops at prices similar to the obsolete drugs still in circulation. We question the wisdom of this approach...

It's not all bad news: advances in malaria drug research [The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9709, Page 122, 9 January 2010 ] — (English)
Wen Kilama and Francine Ntoumi (Oct 31, p 1480)1 highlight the real challenges we confront if we are to sustain the remarkable advances achieved since 2000 in reducing malaria morbidity and mortality...

Blood glucose and prognosis in children with presumed severe malaria: is there a threshold for 'hypoglycaemia'? [Tropical Medicine & International Health Volume 15 Issue 2, Pages 232 - 240] — (English)
If there is a threshold of blood glucose which defines a worse prognosis, it is at a higher level than the current definition of 2.2 mmol/l...

In vitro sensitivity of Plasmodium falciparum to conventional and novel antimalarial drugs in Papua New Guinea [Tropical Medicine & International Health] — (English)
Most PNG isolates are resistant to CQ in vitro but not to other ACT partner drugs. The non-isotopic semi-automated high-throughput nature of the Plasmodium lactate dehydrogenase assay facilitates the convenient serial assessment of local parasite sensitivity, so that emerging resistance can be identified with relative confidence at an early stage...

Personal protection by long-lasting insecticidal hammocks against the bites of forest malaria vectors [Tropical Medicine & International Health] — (English)
Even if this LLIH is not inducing full protection against the bites of malaria vectors, it could prove effective in protecting forest workers and villagers before sleeping time. LLIH can be an additional and valuable tool in eliminating artemisinin-resistant malaria in the region...

Chronic malaria infections increase family inequalities and reduce parental fitness: experimental evidence from a wild bird population [Journal of Evolutionary Biology, Published Online: 7 Jan 2010] — (English)
Most strikingly, we found that treatment of maternal malaria infections strongly altered within-family differences, with reduced inequality in hatching probability and fledging mass within broods reared by medicated females. These within-brood effects appear to explain higher fledging success among medicated females and are consistent with a model of parental optimism in which smaller (marginal) offspring can be successfully raised to independence if additional resources become available during the breeding attempt. Overall, these results demonstrate that chronic avian malaria infections, far from being benign, can have significant effects on host fitness and may thus constitute an important selection pressure in wild bird populations...

A Multifactorial Mechanism in the Superior Antimalarial Activity of α-C-GalCer [Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Volume 2010 (2010), Article ID 283612, 11 pagesdoi:10.1155/2010/283612] — (English)
In this study, we demonstrate that NK cells, as well as IL-12, are a key contributor for the superior activity displayed by α-C-GalCer. Surprisingly, the diminished production of Th2 cytokines, including IL-4, by α-C-GalCer has no affect on its superior therapeutic activity relative to α-GalCer. Finally, we show that the in vivo administration of α-C-GalCer induces prolonged maturation of dendritic cells (DCs), as well as an enhanced proliferative response of mouse invariant Vα14 (Vα14i) NKT cells, both of which may also contribute to some degree to the superior activity of α-C-GalCer in vivo...

Cardiac function and hemodynamics in children in Africa with severe malaria [Crit Care Med. 2010 Jan 9] — (English)
Children with severe malaria and metabolic acidosis have evidence of hypovolemia and evidence of cardiac dysfunction...

Digestive-vacuole genesis and endocytic processes in the early intraerythrocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum [J Cell Sci. 2010 Jan 12] — (English)
The digestive vacuole of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is the site of haemoglobin digestion and haem detoxification, and is the target of chloroquine and other antimalarials. The mechanisms for genesis of the digestive vacuole and transfer of haemoglobin from the host cytoplasm are still debated. Here, we use live-cell imaging and photobleaching to monitor the uptake of the pH-sensitive fluorescent tracer SNARF-1-dextran from the erythrocyte cytoplasm in ring-stage and trophozoite-stage parasites. We compare these results with electron tomography of serial sections of parasites at different stages of growth. We show that uptake of erythrocyte cytoplasm is initiated in mid-ring-stage parasites. The host cytoplasm is internalised via cytostome-derived invaginations and concentrated into several acidified peripheral structures. Haemoglobin digestion and haemozoin formation take place in these vesicles. The ring-stage parasites can adopt a deeply invaginated cup shape but do not take up haemoglobin via macropinocytosis. As the parasite matures, the haemozoin-containing compartments coalesce to form a single acidic digestive vacuole that is fed by haemoglobin-containing vesicles. There is also evidence for haemoglobin degradation in compartments outside the digestive vacuole. The work has implications for the stage specificity of quinoline and endoperoxide antimalarials...

Inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum pH regulation by small molecule indole derivatives results in rapid parasite death [Biochemical Pharmacology, doi:10.1016/j.bcp.2009.12.025] — (English)
Our data support the disruption of parasite pH regulation through inhibition of its V-type H+-ATPase as an antimalarial approach...

Molecular evolution of the three short PGRPs of the malaria vectors Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles arabiensis in East Africa [BMC Evolutionary Biology 2010, 10:9doi:10.1186/1471-2148-10-9] — (English)
PGRP-S1 is less diverse and showed higher divergence between An. gambiae and An. arabiensis regardless of geographic location. This probably relates to its location in the chromosome-X, while PGRP-S2 and PGRP-S3, located in chromosome-2L, showed signs of autosomal introgression. The two short PGRP genes located in the chromosome-2L were under purifying selection, which suggests functional constraints. Different types of selection acting on PGRP-S1 and PGRP-S2 and S3 might be related to their different function and catalytic activity...

Amodiaquine dosage and tolerability for intermittent preventive treatment to prevent malaria in children [Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. doi:10.1128/AAC.01161-09] — (English)
Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine with amodiaquine (SP-AQ) is a highly efficacious regimen for intermittent preventive treatment to prevent malaria in children (IPTc), but the amodiaquine component is not always well tolerated. We determined the association between amodiaquine dosage by body-weight and mild adverse events (AEs), and investigated whether alternative age-based regimens could improve dosing accuracy and tolerability, using data from two trials of IPTc in Senegal, one in which AQ dose was determined by age, the other by weight category...

In vitro sensitivities of Plasmodium falciparum to different antimalarial drugs in Uganda [Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. doi:10.1128/AAC.01412-09] — (English)
In summary, we demonstrated in parasites from Kampala a range of sensitivities to older drugs, correlation of sensitivities to CQ, MDAQ, and QN, and good activity against nearly all strains for DHA, LM, and PQ...

The Effect of Malaria and Intestinal Helminth Coinfection on Birth Outcomes in Kumasi, Ghana [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 82(1), 2010, pp. 28-34] — (English)
This study was conducted to investigate the effect of Plasmodium falciparum and intestinal helminth coinfection on maternal anemia and birth outcomes. A cross-sectional study of 746 women who delivered in two hospitals in Kumasi was conducted. Data were collected using an investigator-administered questionnaire and from patients' medical records...

A Randomized Trial of Artesunate Mefloquine versus Artemether Lumefantrine for the Treatment of Uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum Malaria in Senegalese Children [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 82(1), 2010, pp. 140-144] — (English)
An open randomized clinical trial study was carried out to compare efficacy and tolerability of artesunate mefloquine 25 mg/kg body weight (Artequin paediatric) versus artemether lumefantrine (Coartem) in the treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in children...

Utility of a Point-of-Care Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test for Excluding Malaria as the Cause of Fever among HIV-Positive Adults in Rural Rakai, Uganda [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 82(1), 2010, pp. 145-147] — (English)
We compared results of a malaria rapid diagnostic test (Binax Now® Malaria, Binax-M, Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc., Waltham, MA) performed at rural mobile clinics in Uganda by clinicians evaluating febrile adult HIV patients to thick smear evaluated at a central laboratory by trained microscopists...

HIV Protease Inhibitors, Indinavir or Nelfinavir, Augment Antimalarial Action of Artemisinin in vitro [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 82(1), 2010, pp. 148-150] — (English)
Most malaria endemic regions are co-infested with HIV infection. Treatment of one may affect outcome of the other in co-infected individuals. HIV protease inhibitors, indinavir or nelfinavir, are important antiretroviral drugs and artemisinin is central to malaria treatment. We show these protease inhibitors augment the antimalarial activity of artemisinin against P. falciparum in vitro...

Quality Assurance of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Malaria in Routine Patient Care in Rural Tanzania [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 82(1), 2010, pp. 151-155] — (English)
Histidine-rich protein II (HRP2)-based malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have shown high sensitivity and specificity for detecting Plasmodium falciparum malaria in a variety of study settings. However, RDTs are susceptible to heat and humidity and variation in individual performance, which may affect their use in field settings. We evaluated sensitivity and specificity of RDTs during routine use for malaria case management in peripheral health facilities...

Evidence for Pleistocene Population Divergence and Expansion of Anopheles albimanus in Southern Central America [Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 82(1), 2010, pp. 156-164] — (English)
We hypothesize that the population structure of An. albimanus, as determined by our COI locus analysis, is the result of late Pleistocene climatic changes in northern South America...

Severe malaria is associated with a deficiency of von Willebrand factor cleaving protease, ADAMTS13 [Thrombosis and Haemostasis, DOI: 10.1160/TH09-04-0223] — (English)
Severe falciparum malaria remains a major killer in tropical countries. Central in the pathophysiology is mechanical obstruction in the microcirculation caused by cytoadherence and sequestration of parasitized erythrocytes. However, the pathogenesis of many features complicating severe malaria, including coma, renal failure and thrombocytopenia, remains incompletely understood. These disease manifestations are also key features of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, a life-threatening disease strongly associated with a deficiency of the von Willebrand factor (VWF) cleaving protease, ADAMTS13. We measured plasma ADAMTS13 activity, VWF antigen and VWF propeptide levels in 30 patients with severe falciparum malaria, 12 patients with uncomplicated falciparum malaria and 14 healthy Bangladeshi controls. In patients with severe malaria ADAMTS13 activity levels were markedly decreased in comparison to normal controls (mean [95%CI]: 23% [20–26] vs. 64% [55–72]) and VWF antigen and propeptide concentrations were significantly elevated (VWF antigen: 439% [396–481] vs. 64% [46–83]; VWF propeptide: 576% [481–671] vs. 69% [59–78]). In uncomplicated malaria VWF levels were also increased compared to healthy controls but ADAMTS13 activity was normal. The results suggest that decreased ADAMTS13 activity in combination with increased VWF concentrations may contribute to the complications in severe malaria...

Interpretation of the ultraviolet-visible spectra of malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum [Applied Optics, Vol. 49, Issue 2, pp. 180-188] — (English)
The absorption and scattering properties of three developmental stages of protozoan parasite Plasmodium falciparum were studied both experimentally and theoretically. Experimentally, the light attenuation and forward scattering from parasites extracted from host erythrocyte cultures were measured with UV-visible spectroscopy. The measured spectra were interpreted theoretically with a model based on the core-shell Mie theory in terms of the structural and compositional characteristics of the protozoa. The model accurately reproduced the features of the measured spectra of all developmental stages. The results show that realistic quantitative estimates of the parasite size, nucleotide, and hemozoin contents can be derived from the UV-visible spectroscopy measurements...

Prime-boost vectored malaria vaccines: Progress and prospects [Landes Bioscience, Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2010, Pages 78 - 83] — (English)
The difficulty of inducing protective immunity through antibodies against sporozoites led to efforts to assess vectored vaccines as a means of inducing protective T cell immunity against the malaria liver-stage parasite. Although DNA vectored vaccines used alone were poorly immunogenic and not protective, high levels of parasite clearance in the liver has been achieved with viral vectored vaccines used in heterologous prime-boost regimes...

Molecular vaccines for malaria [Hum Vaccin. 2010 Jan 29;6(1)] — (English)
The basic premise of vaccination is the triggering of host immune responses leading to the induction of adaptive immunity having sufficient magnitude and duration to provide long term protection. This has been achieved by many licensed vaccines, the majority based on attenuated or inactivated organisms, although often the protective antigens and underlying molecular mechanisms have not been identified. However, this traditional approach has not led to the development of a licensed vaccine for malaria or for several other devastating infectious diseases. Recently, substantial efforts have been focused on applying rational molecular design principles toward the development of novel vaccines for these refractory pathogens. In this review, we discuss the molecular aspects of antigen design, adjuvant advancement and the development of vaccine delivery systems as they are being applied to malaria vaccines...

Serum retinol concentration in patients with acute falciparum malaria in Aligarh, India [The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries] — (English)
The diseased cohort demonstrated significant reduction in concentrations of retinol in comparison to healthy controls (p < 0.001) and there was an inverse relationship (coefficient of correlation r = -0.899) between parasitemia and serum retinol concentration...

Near-fixation of a Pfmsp1 block 2 allelic variant in genetically diverse Plasmodium falciparum populations across Western Colombia [Acta Tropica, doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2009.12.009] — (English)
Analysis of published data indicated that the prevalence of this allelic variant of a major vaccine candidate antigen was already dominant since 1998. This phenomenon, which had not been hitherto recorded for a malaria blood stage antigen, is of biological and immunological interest but remains unexplained...

Functional Diversification between Two Related Plasmodium falciparum Merozoite Invasion Ligands is Determined by Changes in the Cytoplasmic Domain [Molecular Microbiology, Published Online: 5 Jan 2010] — (English)
We have generated viable PfRh2a/2b chimeric parasites to identify the regions required for alternative invasion pathway utilization. We find that the differential ability to use these pathways is conferred by the cytoplasmic domains of PfRh2a and PfRh2b, not the ectodomain or transmembrane regions. Our results highlight the importance of the cytoplasmic domain for functional diversification of a major adhesive ligand family in malaria parasites...

Articles included in 'Malaria in the News' do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership or any of its individual partners.