Malaria: infant killer and the 2030 challenge

More than 40% of the world's population lives in areas at risk from the disease. Every minute, "a child dies from malaria, costing $ 12 billion a year in malaria, Africa "and there is no vaccine so far for the disease, which killed 438 thousand people in 2015, according to World Health Organization figures.

Most of the victims are under-five children in sub-Saharan Africa, while the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to reduce malaria deaths by 90 percent by 2030.

Malaria is infested with mosquito bites, one of the leading causes of death in the world, with more than half of the world's population at risk of malaria. Most of the victims are infants, and the World Health Organization (WHO) says recent progress has been made against the mosquito-borne disease and the number of people infected with it has dropped dramatically, but the disease still kills more than 420,000 people a year.

In the development of the global epidemic, scientists said that malaria-resistant bacteria have colonized parts of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, threatening to undermine progress in the fight against the disease, and spread bacteria - malaria parasites that can overcome the best existing treatments for the disease - in Cambodia and even there parasites More resistant to many drugs spread in southern Laos and northeastern Thailand.

In a related vein, the World Health Organization (WHO) said funding for the first pilot phase of the first malaria vaccine in the world was being carried out in sub-Saharan Africa and immunization campaigns would begin in 2018.

The vaccine, known as RTSOS, has been developed by British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, which is low-effective and needs to be vaccinated for four separate doses, but the first vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease is approved for use. The RTS vaccine is promising but should be used on a pilot basis before any widespread use and attributed the reason to its limited effectiveness. On the important side, the Alliance of African Leaders to Fight Malaria said African governments were confident malaria could be eradicated Within 15 years with developing and testing Research innovations including a vaccine against the disease.

The African continent has made good progress in fighting the mosquito-borne disease in recent decades, reducing the number of deaths by 66 percent since 2000. Yet Africa remains the worst affected region in the world, with 88 percent of new cases and 90 percent Percent of deaths.

In 2015, some 188 million Africans were infected with malaria, 395,000 of whom died, mostly children under the age of five, according to the coalition, which is working to end malaria deaths in Africa. The African Union recently agreed on a roadmap to eradicate the disease by 2030, Which has made ending the malaria epidemic one of its sustainable development goals for 2030.

US billionaire Bill Gates and British finance minister George Osborne on Monday announced a three billion pound ($ 4.28 billion) plan to stamp out malaria, the world's deadliest killer.

In the latest study, a new study shows that although public health officials in the United States declared their victory over malaria in 1951, the mosquito-borne disease still affects and dislikes Americans traveling abroad.

While natural sugar in the flowers or fruit consumed by mosquitoes can increase or impede their ability to transmit malaria infection, researchers said. These results suggest that plant transplantation may adversely affect the ability of mosquitoes to transmit the disease A good malaria control strategy. Researchers have said that gardening can be a powerful weapon against malaria because it helps eliminate mosquito populations by eliminating the source of their nutrition. A team of researchers tested their idea in nine villages in the arid Pandjara region, Mali, in western Africa, the World Health Organization recommended a new network of mosquitoes containing a new type of pesticides produced by BASF German chemicals and hopes to help fight malaria.

Drug-resistant bacteria threaten to control malaria

"We are losing a dangerous race to eradicate artemisinin-resistant malaria," said Nicholas White, a professor at Oxford University in Britain and Mahidol University in Thailand who co-led the study. "Before the spread of widespread resistance to antimalarial drugs makes it impossible, India and Africa may be dangerous if drug resistance is not addressed from the perspective of a global public health emergency. "

A major treatment for malaria has failed for the first time to produce positive results in patients in Britain, doctors said. The drug was unable to treat four of the patients who had all visited African countries, the first sign that the parasite was immune to treatment.

A team from the London School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine said it was too early to be alarmed by the results, but warned that things could suddenly get worse and called for an urgent assessment of the disease's levels of drug resistance in Africa.

Malaria is caused by bites from infected mosquitoes and is one of the main causes of death in children under five years of age. It kills one child every two minutes. Between 1,500 and 2,000 people are treated for malaria each year, often after an external visit. "The drug failed to treat four patients between October 2015 and February 2016. There was a good initial response from all patients to treatment and they were allowed to return to their homes, but they were hospitalized," the journal Antibacterials and Chemotherapy reported. Again after about a month When the infection reappeared, Dr. Colin Sperland told the BBC: "It is interesting that there are four treatment failures (from malaria), and there was no other (similar) story published in the UK about the failure of the antimalarial drug. , And cured all four patients of the disease in the end but using other therapeutic methods. According to the BBC.

Funding for the pilot phase of the world's first malaria vaccine

Pedro Alfonso, director of WHO's Global Malaria Program, said that providing funding and successful vaccine testing in Africa would be a defining moment in the fight against malaria. "These pilot projects will provide the evidence we need from real places to make informed decisions on whether, Wide use of the vaccine. "Approval for its use was approved after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Thursday approved the provision of $ 15 million for the pilot phase of the vaccine. According to Reuters.

The World Federation of Vaccines and Immunization (JAVI) and Unite Aid pledged up to $ 27.5 million and $ 9.6 million respectively for the first four years of the program. GlaxoSmithKline developed the vaccine in partnership with the non-profit Path of the Malaria Vaccine And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Innovations give an alliance to fight malaria in the hope that the disease can be eradicated by 2030

The Alliance is "relatively comfortable" about whether the target can be achieved while new malaria products are expected to be marketed over the next five to 10 years, said Joey Fumavi, executive secretary of the African Malaria Alliance. According to Reuters.

"We have a new vaccine and we have a new treatment for malaria and we have new pesticides," she told Thomson Reuters in an interview. More than 30 vaccines against malaria are being developed. Last year, the Mosquerex vaccine became the first vaccine to receive regulatory approval from the European Medicines Agency, but studies say its effectiveness is limited. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that by 2019 a drug capable of destroying all parasites in the body could be available in one dose.

Researchers are also working on new insecticides used to spray houses indoors and in networks that cover the beds after mosquitoes become resistant to existing pesticides. Fumavi said technology alone is not enough to fight malaria. Governments must also tackle corruption and reform their health care systems to ensure resource management. More efficiently.

Mosquitoes can reduce malaria infections

LONDON (Reuters) - Dutch and Kenyan scientists have designed a mosquito trap to attract a scent that simulates human body odor into a reliable invention to combat the spread of malaria, according to a study in The Lancet. These ambushes succeeded in attracting 70 percent of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Of the disease, by 30 percent, in homes that used the ambushes, according to the study, which lasted three years in Kenya.

The research was carried out on the island of Rosenta on Lake Victoria, where all 25,000 inhabitants were involved. The mosquito trap is placed inside or outside the house, powered by solar energy generated by solar panels. According to AFP.

"The trap can provide a solution to diseases such as dengue fever and zika virus," the University of Wageningen said in a statement. "They are caused by mosquitoes, which are transmitted by mosquitoes that are different from the malaria-carrying species, but both are attracted to human odor.

"Fighting malaria without the use of pesticides is my biggest dream," said Willem Tacken, the study's supervisor.

Scientists are developing a way to track malaria resistance to known drugs

Scientists have developed a method to track the spread of a highly dangerous type of malaria, which can not be cured by known means. In Cambodia, doctors this year declared the failure of the usual malaria drugs, artemisinin and pyperquin, to kill this phase of the disease.

Experts say the study, published in the Lancet medical journal, is a major step forward and will help counteract the threat after the discovery of the causes of resistance to treatment. Artemisinin's effectiveness in fighting the disease has been known for years, but recent resistance to pepiraquin means the failure of conventional drugs Malaria.

A team of international researchers analyzed the DNA of hundreds of viruses from malaria, with the aim of finding out how to fight against peperraquin. "The resistance to the disease has become widespread," said Dr. Roberto Amato, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute of the BBC. "There is a total failure of the drug in a province in western Cambodia. The problem of drug failure In that it will increase the spread of the disease in other countries, especially Africa. "

It may become catastrophic if drug resistance spreads in Africa, which accounts for 88 percent of the world's total malaria cases.

"But there is good news," Amato said. "We are beginning to come up with evidence for the treatment that can be used." Surprisingly, drug-resistant strains seem to be unable to resist an older drug, myfluquin. There is a theory that malaria can not be resistant to both bipiraquin and myfluquin, so doctors may be able to exchange these drugs.

For AMTO, the long-term goal is to continue to anticipate disease. "It develops every day in an attempt to escape the immune system of humans and insects, which is the disease (highly) skilled in this matter, which we must be aware of," and continued: "It is important to understand the way and direction of the evolution of the disease. "Said Dr. David Conway, of the London School of Health and Tropical Diseases." These studies are a major step in our understanding of the disease as its ability to develop and resist poses a serious threat to malaria control efforts around the world. "

Donations to eradicate malaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US billionaire Bill Gates and British finance minister George Osborne on Monday announced a three billion pound ($ 4.28 billion) plan to stamp out malaria, the deadliest killer in the world, Over five years to fund research and support efforts to eradicate the mosquito-borne disease.

"We are both considering that eradicating malaria from the world is a global health priority," Gates and Osborne wrote, "and 500 million pounds ($ 713 million) will come from the British budget for development assistance in When Bill Gates will pay a total of $ 200 million in 2016, followed by other donations. According to AFP.

According to the World Health Organization's 2015 report on malaria, some 214 million new cases of the disease have killed some 438,000 people last year, while malaria is a preventable and treatable disease, and Ozburn and Gates warned that " New types of pesticides by 2020, the situation will be accurate and the number of deaths may rise, "but they are always" optimistic about the possibility of eradicating malaria during their lives. "

Plant nectar may affect the transmission of malaria infection

According to researchers, natural sugar in the flowers or fruit consumed by mosquitoes can increase or limit their ability to transmit malaria infection. According to these researchers, plant transplantation may adversely affect the ability of mosquitoes to transmit the disease. Malaria. The work of these researchers has been published in the specialized magazine "Plus Pathogenes".

Recent studies have shown that the sugar consumed by mosquitoes, which also affect human and animal blood, affects their lifespan. In contrast, the effect of plant diversity on its ability to transmit parasite was not yet known, and researchers have subsequently deepened what the mosquitoes eat.

In the laboratory, the researchers fed the mosquitoes with natural sugar taken from nectar, ornamental plants and fruit (manga and wild grapes) harvested from parks and parks in the city of Bob Diulasso in Burkina Faso.

Another group of mosquitoes received local water at 5 percent. After 24 hours, mosquitoes were given a meal of parasitic blood. For 14 days, the parasite evolved in mosquitoes. The mosquitoes continued to feed one of the sources of sugar (flowers, fruit or local solution). Based on calculations and observations, Greatly affect the growth of the parasite on the fertility of mosquitoes and prolong their lives. According to the plant, mosquitoes were 30% or 30% to 40%. According to AFP.

Specific interaction mechanisms are still unknown, but parasitic components of the parasite may play a role, researchers say, and research should be carried out on a wider range of plants to identify species that may disrupt parasite transmission.

Malaria still poses a threat to Americans traveling abroad

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although public health officials in the United States announced their victory over malaria in 1951, the mosquito-borne disease still affects and dislikes Americans traveling abroad, a new study shows.

The United States Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health estimates that from 2000 to 2014, more than 22,000 people were treated for malaria in hospitals in the United States, including 182 people who died from the disease.

Using hospital data, researchers found more than 2,100 cases of malaria in the United States occurring annually, more than twice the number previously reported. "Most of those treated in malaria hospitals in the United States were men," said Diana Khu, a senior author of the study. Most of them were black, most likely foreigners who traveled abroad, often to their home countries where they are often unaware that they are no longer immune to the deadly disease. "We need to encourage travelers to seek advice before traveling and use personal protective measures Against mosquitoes and treating malaria when they travel to countries with malaria. "Since many do not use these preventive measures, there are many hospital admissions and hospital fees of half a billion dollars between 2000 and 2014"

Intensive garden care may help fight malaria

LONDON (Reuters) - Care for the gardens may be a powerful weapon against malaria because it helps eliminate mosquito populations by cutting off its source of nutrition, researchers said on Monday. Researchers have tested their idea in nine villages in Africa's arid Bandiagara region of western Africa.

The results of the study, published in the journal "Research Malaria", that the removal of flowers from trees in the region had an impact on the elimination of female mosquitoes, the oldest adult carriers of malaria.

Scientists believe that without the nectar, the "grandmothers" of mosquitoes are starving. So eliminating female mosquitoes may stop malaria transmission. Mosquitoes carry malaria parasites into saliva cells and transmit them to humans. The infected person can then infect the younger mosquito females, who are looking for Blood is rich in food during its fertility and egg production. It takes about 10 days for the young mosquito to become a source of infection for humans. This may not seem long, but it is long for insects.

By the time the mosquito becomes a malaria vector, it has become old.

Although they feed on blood, they also depend on the nectar to survive, and scientists believe that a widespread plant species in Pandyagara is a major source of food for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. According to the BBC.

In addition, researchers from the Hadassah University of Medicine in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Miami in the United States have been experimenting with agriculture to find out what is happening in Africa. If the removal of flowers from this plant will help eliminate mosquitoes in the area, in villages where they removed flowers, the total mosquitoes fell by about 60 percent. Scientists have no direct evidence, but they believe that mosquitoes were starved as a result of depletion of their food source.

German company unveils new malaria mosquito nets

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a new mosquito net containing a new type of pesticide produced by German chemicals firm BASF and hopes to help fight malaria. WHO says malaria death rates have fallen 60 percent since 2000, but efforts to eliminate one of the most common diseases In deaths worldwide, killing some 430,000 people a year, are at risk as mosquito resistance increases control measures such as mosquito nets treated with pesticides and anti-malaria drugs. According to Reuters.

The mosquito net produced by BASF relies on chlorophenapir, a substance that has been used for more than 20 years in pest control, but BASF has developed it to be more effective on mosquito nets and to meet target levels in the public health market. The network will provide protection for three years or 20 times At least, BASF said the network would be available to health ministries and aid organizations by the end of this year.