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    Lightbulb Malaria, typhoid, West Nile, cholera, ebola & other tropical diseases

    Experimental malaria vaccine shows disappointing results...

    Experimental Malaria Vaccine Falls Short
    November 09, 2012 - The world's first experimental malaria vaccine produced disappointing results in a large-scale test among African infants, raising questions about its potential for fighting the disease.
    The vaccine, promoted as a new weapon in the malaria fight, reduced the risk of malaria by only 30 percent. The study involved more than 6,500 babies aged six to 12 weeks. The results, released Friday, showed the vaccine providing less than half the protection it did in a previous smaller trial involving infants. The report said the "modest protection" the vaccine, which is also known as RTS,S or Mosquirix, has been provided in this latest trial was also lower than the 50 percent reported last year among older children.

    Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, told the Associated Press that the vaccine’s effectiveness was “unacceptably low.” Vaccinating babies is seen as a more cost effective way of battling the disease since it could be added to the regimen of other infant vaccinations. Billionaire Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose foundation is helping fund the vaccine, said the effectiveness rate came back lower than hoped. But the top British drug manufacturer developing the vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), will continue its efforts.

    Chief executive Andrew Witty said the drugmaker remains convinced the vaccine has a role to play in tackling malaria. “We’ve been at this for 30 years, and we’re certainly not going to give up now, he said during a conference call with reporters. The company, which has invested $300 million in the drug, does not expect to profit from the drug, which will be sold only in poor countries. “The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later,” said Adrian Hill of Oxford University to the Associated Press.

    The results were released during a conference in South Africa Friday as part of a continuing study that will end in 2014. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 650,000 people die from the mosquito-borne illness each year. The vast majority are children in sub-Saharan Africa.

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    In Nigeria, Time Running Out for Kids Poisoned by Lead
    November 09, 2012 — The medical aid group Doctors Without Borders estimates that 1,500 children are suffering from lead poisoning in a northern Nigerian village, and can not be treated until the lead is cleaned up. The organization says if the cleanup does not begin soon, it may not be able to treat the children when, or if the cleanup ever happens.
    In the quiet village of Bagega, in northern Nigeria, the children were exposed when small-scale gold mining near the village released poisonous lead dust into the air. Hours away at a café in the capital, Abuja, Doctors Without Borders humanitarian affairs officer Hosanna Fox says it is not just medical workers that are alarmed. "All the state agencies, all the community leaders, people that are involved in various aspects of mining. They’re all joining forces with one message: There’s no more time left," Fox explains. "Children are suffering and dying from lead poisoning. Further government delay will have catastrophic effects for a group of children that have already been victims for two years.”

    Fox says cleanup of the lead is possible, and the government set aside more than $4 million in May for the project, but the money is tied up in the bureaucracy. She says unless the money is released by the middle of this month, there won't be enough time to complete the cleanup before the rainy season begins in April or May. If the cleanup is delayed until next year, she says, the treatment of the children will have to be delayed too, because treatment cannot be successful if lead dust is still in the environment.

    Fox says Doctors Without Borders will not commit to taking Bagega children into the group's lead poison treatment program unless the cleanup begins soon. “We’ve had really great success medically, but unfortunately we can’t wait indefinitely for the government of Nigeria to take action and at some point we will have to put limitations on our commitment,” he warns. The Zamfara lead poisoning outbreak began in 2010 and has been called the largest in recorded history. Hundreds of children died and others continue to suffer long-term mental and emotional problems and disabilities like paralysis and cerebral palsy. Aid workers say lead poisoning also affects adults in Zamfara state but treatment is not available.

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    Last edited by waltky; 11-09-2012 at 09:23 PM.

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    107 Dead In Sudan Yellow Fever Outbreak...

    WHO: 107 dead from yellow fever in Sudan
    November 13. 2012 - Sudan is working on an emergency vaccination drive for yellow fever, which is spreading.
    A yellow fever outbreak in Sudan's Darfur region has killed 107 people in the last six weeks, the World Health Organization reported Tuesday, warning that the disease could spread all over the country. The number of deaths from the outbreak is steadily rising, and Sudan is working on an emergency vaccination drive. Officials reported last week that 67 people had died in the outbreak. There is no medicinal cure for yellow fever, which is spread by mosquitoes. Doctors treat the main symptoms — dehydration, fever, bleeding and vomiting — and wait for the viral infection to pass. The WHO estimates that more than 500 million people in 32 countries in Africa are at risk of yellow fever infection.

    As part of the emergency response program, 2.4 million doses of the yellow fever vaccine are scheduled to arrive in the Sudanese capital next week, Dr. Anshu Banerjee of the WHO office in Sudan told the Associated Press by phone on Tuesday. More than 350 suspected cases of yellow fever have been reported in Darfur since late September, and more than 30% of people showing symptoms have died, according to a WHO statement. Around 70% are under 29 years old, according to a statement released Monday by the Sudanese Health Ministry and the WHO.

    Banerjee warned that yellow fever cases are "definitely spreading" to new areas of the remote region of Darfur, where Sudan's government has been battling rebel groups since 2003. More than 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and health care services are not available to many residents as a result of the turmoil. He said that while no yellow fever cases have been found outside Darfur, the WHO is planning a risk assessment in the next two weeks on the assumption that all areas in Sudan may be at risk of infection. Banerjee said that Darfur's heavy rainy season this year created additional breeding sites for the disease-carrying mosquitos. Sudan's last outbreak of yellow fever killed 160 people in the South Kordofan region in 2005.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...sudan/1702733/

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    Malaria free in 4 years?...

    Report: Six African Nations Could be Malaria-free by 2020
    April 25, 2016 - Within the next four years, six nations in Africa – the region where malaria is most prominent – could be free of the disease, the World Health Organization said in a report published Monday to mark World Malaria Day.
    The “Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016-2030”, approved by the WHO last year, hoped to see an end to local transmission of malaria in at least 10 countries by 2020, but now the WHO estimates that 21 countries could achieve that goal, including six in Africa. “Since the year 2000, malaria mortality rates have declined by 60% globally. In the WHO African Region, malaria mortality rates fell by 66% among all age groups and by 71% among children under 5 years,” the WHO said in a statement accompanying the report. The six countries in Africa that could be rid of malaria by 2020 are Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Comoros, South Africa and Swaziland.


    A doctor puts a heart monitor on the foot of a baby who is suffering from severe malaria in the Siaya hospital in western Kenya.

    WHO says malaria infection rates are falling thanks to the use of insecticide-treated bed-nets, regular bug spraying inside dwellings and rapid diagnostic testing, though these techniques are becoming less effective as time goes on. “The efficacy of the tools that secured the gains against malaria in the early years of this century is now threatened,” the WHO said. “Mosquito resistance to insecticides used in nets and indoor residual spraying is growing. So too is parasite resistance to a component of one of the most powerful antimalarial medicines.” While the outlook is promising, the group cautioned that nearly half of the world’s population – around 3.2 billion people – are still at risk of contracting malaria. Just last year, 214 million new cases of malaria were reported in 95 countries. More than 400,000 people died from the disease.


    Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Comoros, South Africa, and Swaziland, in Africa

    The report says 9 out of ten deaths from malaria in 2015 came from sub-Saharan Africa. Moving forward, the WHO said new technologies will need to be developed to deal with the disease and the fight will require strong political commitment and financing from governments. “Reaching the goals of the ‘Global Technical Strategy’ will require a steep increase in global and domestic funding—from $2.5 billion today to an estimated $8.7 billion annually by 2030,” it said.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/repor...0/3301183.html

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    Dengue fever outbreak in Pakistan...

    Telephone Hotline in Pakistan Predicts Dengue Outbreaks
    July 08, 2016 - Predicting an outbreak of dengue fever could be just a phone call away. A telephone helpline is assisting public health officials in Pakistan predict the incidence of the mosquito-borne disease.
    Researchers have created a computer algorithm that uses hotline reports from the public to help forecast the number of dengue cases, two to three weeks before there’s an actual outbreak. By knowing how many people could become infected, public health officials can take preventive measures to limit the impact of dengue on a community. Lakshmi Subramanian, a professor of mathematical sciences at New York University, said the computer model is extremely accurate. “So this is telling you in [these] particular localities, the number could vary between five and seven within the next two weeks; it could vary between 17 and 19 over the next two, three weeks,” he said. “It’s actually giving you the exact range. And that is more powerful than,'Oh, I think an outbreak is going to happen or an outbreak is not going to happen.'” He added that an outbreak can even be traced to particular neighborhoods and blocks within those areas. Subramanian and colleagues described their computer model in the journal Science Advances.


    A woman holds her son, suffering from dengue fever, as she sits under a mosquito net inside a dengue ward of a local hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan

    Hotline origin

    An estimated 400,000 people are infected with dengue fever each year. Worldwide, an estimated 2.5 billion people are at risk of contracting dengue, which causes sudden high fever, severe headaches and agonizing joint and muscle pain. Parasite-infected mosquitoes spread the illness, for which there is still no cure or vaccine. In 2011, the Pakistani province of Punjab was blindsided by a severe outbreak of dengue, which infected more than 21,000 people and took 350 lives. Unprepared for the onslaught, hospitals in Punjab were swamped. Since then, researchers in the United States and Pakistan developed a telephone hotline to help forecast the scope of a particular dengue outbreak. The computer algorithm that feeds information from callers into the prediction model.

    Hotline response

    So far, some 300,000 people have called the hotline with questions about the symptoms of dengue. They also report areas where there is still water or open sewage that could be a breeding ground for dengue mosquitoes. The information from the algorithm can be widely disseminated to help hospitals prepare for a dengue outbreak. Proactively, public health workers can eliminate standing pools of water and use insecticides to kill mosquitoes. The authors say the hotline-based system is economical and does not require a huge effort to collect and analyze disease incidence information.


    A boy tries to outrun a man fumigating for mosquitoes in an effort to combat dengue fever, on the streets of Lahore, Pakistan

    The study’s first author, Nabeel Abdur Rehman, said a hotline has also been established to pinpoint outbreaks of polio, a disease that has been virtually eradicated worldwide but for a few remaining cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rehman, a doctoral student at NYU, said similar systems can be set up to help identify suspected cases of malaria and influenza. “So, to some extent, it’s very generic and can be deployed in any other parts of the country and any other countries because it’s cost-effective and it can be developed for any other disease.” With information from the hotline and disease prevention efforts, the authors say the number of dengue cases in Lahore fell to 1600 cases in 2013.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/pakis...e/3409547.html

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    ALIMA tryin' to stop outbreak of Rift Valley Fever...

    Rift Valley Fever Outbreak Kills 21 in Western Niger
    September 21, 2016 — Health workers in western Niger are racing to contain an outbreak of Rift Valley fever that has killed at least 21 people over the past month, an aid agency said Wednesday.
    The highly contagious disease, which is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes or close contact with contaminated animals, has infected 52 people in Niger's western region of Tahoua since late August, the country's health ministry said. The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) and Niger's health authorities have opened an emergency treatment center in the region's hardest-hit district of Tchintabaraden to look after the infected and stop the disease from spreading. "Unfortunately, the 52 severe cases officially registered at present only represent the tip of the iceberg," ALIMA's medical coordinator Oumarou Maidadji said in a statement.


    Mariam Dagane, who is infected with Rift Valley fever, rests on her bed at the Garissa hospital, 390 km (242 miles) from Nairobi

    With no specific treatment or effective human vaccine, Rift Valley fever can cause blindness and severe hemorrhaging, leading the victim to vomit blood or even bleed to death. Herders and farmers are deemed at higher risk of infection from the disease, which can devastate livestock. Niger's health ministry said people in the Tahoua region, especially pastoralists, should avoid handling meat from infected animals, boil raw milk before consumption, and ensure that the corpses of dead animals are buried carefully.

    ALIMA is also working with local partners and doctors to provide a mobile clinic which travels the region to inform the public about the disease and how to prevent it from spreading. "Awareness is an essential step to contain the spread of the epidemic," Maidadji said. "Vigilance is crucial."

    http://www.voanews.com/a/rift-valley...r/3519261.html

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    Genetically Engineered Vaccine Prevents Malaria in Mice...

    Genetically Engineered Vaccine Prevents Malaria in Mice, Findings Show
    January 04, 2017 - A genetically engineered malaria vaccine has been shown to prevent the disease in mice, researchers say. The findings offer hope of halting the illness in humans, as well as stopping transmission of the mosquito-borne disease.
    Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research at the University of Washington in Seattle, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have developed a vaccine that uses the entire malaria-causing parasite — called P. falciparum — to stimulate a protective immune response. Researchers weakened the malaria parasite by knocking out three genes that the organism needs in order to replicate in the human liver and re-emerge in the bloodstream to cause illness. "[Removing] these three genes make sure the parasite cannot develop to the next stage of infection, which occurs in the blood, which causes all of the disease and death associated with malaria," said CIDR’s Stefan Kappe, one of the main authors of the study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

    Normally, after the parasite infects the liver, it leaves the organ to infect red blood cells, where billions of disease-causing parasites are produced. In the study, researchers identified the three genes tucked within the parasite's enormous genome that allow it to enter the bloodstream. By knocking out those genes, says Kappe, the altered parasite remained confined to the liver and the immune system began churning out protective antibodies. "So, it infects the liver — that is asymptomatic so that's OK, and it doesn't cause any specific damage to the liver — but it stimulates your immune system [to fight],” Kappe said. “So, [the parasite] stops right there, and we call it 'check in, but it doesn't check out.'"


    Mosquitoes live inside a stock cage in a mosquito laboratory in London

    In a Phase 1 clinical trial testing the vaccine's safety, the neutralized parasite was injected into 10 healthy human volunteers, where it stimulated a strong immune response without causing malaria. Investigators then injected mice with the vaccine containing genetically engineered parasites, and exposed those mice to whole parasites that had not been altered. The vaccine completely protected the animals from malaria, according to researchers. The most recent statistics by the World Health Organization show that an estimated 212 million people are infected with malaria every year, and some 429,000 — mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa — die of the disease.

    Kappe said the experimental vaccine has the potential to prevent transmission, as well. "If you block the parasite in the liver,” he said, “you do not get disease, but you also don't get transmission of the parasite to the next person because the mosquito has to pick up parasite from the bloodstream. But if the parasite can never make it to the bloodstream, it cannot be transmitted to another person." Researchers are preparing to test the experimental vaccine in humans this year to see whether they, like the mice, are protected against malaria when exposed to the whole, unaltered parasite.

    http://www.voanews.com/a/genetically.../3663253.htmlp
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    Zimbabwe Battles New Typhoid Outbreak
    January 04, 2017 — An outbreak of typhoid in Zimbabwe's capital has killed two people and is affecting dozens more, raising fears that the southern African country's water and sanitation problems are far from over.
    Officials say that so far, 126 cases of typhoid have been confirmed in Harare since the start of the rainy season in Zimbabwe about two months ago. There are more than 1,000 other suspected cases nationwide. But Dr. Prosper Chonzi, who heads the Harare health department, said there was no need to panic. "What we are doing is to educate the public on awareness issues to do with typhoid — what it is, how it is spread, how to avoid getting it," Chonzi said. "We are also discouraging people from consuming food from undesignated premises." Harare city crews, he added, were clearing blocked sewer pipes in Mbare township and trying to ensure supplies of fresh water in affected areas.

    Problems persist

    However, a visit to those and other parts of Harare on Wednesday told a different story. Faucets were dry, sewer water could be seen flowing, and some people were using water from open sources like lakes and rivers. Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health, said President Robert Mugabe's government did not learn much from the 2008-09 rainy season, when an outbreak of cholera killed more than 4,000 people in Zimbabwe. "The fundamental health issues that were supposed to have been attended to from the earlier crisis have not been attended to," Rusike said. "Authorities are taking advantage of the outdated Public Health Act that we are using, enacted in 1924. Public health trends have changed [since then]. This is why you find that it is easier for the city of Harare to pollute our water bodies and pay the fine, [a] very small fine."


    Residents fetch water from unprotected sources in Harare, Zimbabwe, July 28, 2012. The country is now dealing with another outbreak of typhoid fever.

    The pollution he referred to is raw sewer water discharging into rivers, which some people rely on for daily use. Those using the contaminated river can easily contract waterborne diseases such as typhoid and cholera. Typhoid, an infectious bacterial fever, can be treated with antibiotics, but it still kills more than 220,000 people worldwide each year, according to an estimate from 2014 reported by the World Health Organization.

    http://www.voanews.com/a/zimbabwe-ba...k/3663331.html
    Last edited by waltky; 01-05-2017 at 04:17 AM.

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    yellow fever vaccine are scheduled to arrive in the Sudanese capital next week,
    They should have gotten them sooner.

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    waltky (11-15-2012)

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    Yellow Fever outbreak in Angola...

    WHO Issues Yellow Fever Warning As Deadly Outbreak Grows
    Wednesday 27th April, 2016 - At least 258 people have been killed by the disease.
    Amid rising concern over a deadly outbreak of yellow fever spreading from Angola, the World Health Organization on Tuesday urged travelers to the African country to heed its warnings and get vaccinated. At least 258 people have been killed and there have been around 1,975 suspected cases of the mosquito-borne disease since an epidemic erupted in December 2015. It has already grown to become the worst outbreak in decades. Yellow fever is transmitted by the same mosquitoes that spread the Zika and dengue viruses, although it is a far more serious disease with death rates as high as 75 percent in severe cases requiring admission to hospital.

    Angola's outbreak has already spread to other countries in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and at least 11 cases of yellow fever have been imported into China in people traveling from Angola. "Cases of yellow fever linked to this outbreak have been detected in other countries of Africa and Asia," WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in a statement. "We are particularly concerned that large urban areas are at risk and we strongly urge all travelers to Angola to ensure they are vaccinated against yellow fever and carry a valid certificate."


    High-rise buildings are seen behind informal settlements in Luanda, Angola, where a yellow fever outbreak has health experts worried

    The WHO's regional office for Africa said last week that yellow fever in people who traveled from Angola has been reported in China (11 cases), DRC (10 cases with 1 in Kinshasa) and Kenya (2 cases). It said three further cases have been reported in Uganda, but these patients had no history of travel to Angola. The WHO "is working with neighboring countries such as the DRC, Namibia and Zambia to bolster cross-border surveillance with Angola and information sharing to prevent and reduce the spread of infection", it said.

    Jack Woodall, a yellow fever expert who formerly worked for the WHO and the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, said he is worried the outbreak could spread rapidly along a major trucking route from DRC to Uganda's capital Kampala."Surveillance of this trade route should be intensified and vaccination of people living along it should be top priority," he said. A spokesman for the WHO in Geneva said a nationwide vaccination program that began in Angola in February has reached 7 million people. But experts are warning the world's stocks of yellow fever vaccines are under sever pressure form the outbreak, with some calling for a radical switch in strategy to use a tenth of the normal dose and aim to cover more people.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...m_hp_ref=world

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    Drug-resistant Malaria possibility in Africa...

    Prospect of Drug-resistant Malaria Stirs Concern in Africa
    July 14, 2016 — The number of new malaria cases in Africa fell 42 percent from 2000 to 2015, according to the World Health Organization. The drop was due in large part to insecticide-treated mosquito nets, indoor spraying and better access to effective treatments. But this progress could be derailed by a new wave of drug-resistant malaria that's currently affecting Asia.
    Abdoulaye Djimde, head of the molecular epidemiology and drug resistance unit at the Malaria Research and Training Center in Bamako, Mali, said that "we should be concerned. ... Given the frequent interconnection between Asia and Africa — you have direct flights from almost everywhere to several parts of Africa — there is the risk for importing these resistant parasites. [It] is higher today.” In the 1970s, millions of Africans contracted malaria resistant to the front-line drug at the time, chloroquine. The results were catastrophic.


    Women hold mosquito nets after receiving them at a distribution point in Sesheke, Zambia

    As of last year, five countries in Southeast Asia had reported cases of malaria resistant to the latest treatment, Artemisinin-based combination therapies, or ACT. “We need to be alert so that what happened with chloroquine resistance does not catch up with us," said Eunice Misiani of South Africa's National Malaria Control Program. "We have to make sure we conduct the efficacy testing standards on a regular basis — every two to three years.”

    Fake drugs persist

    Counterfeit drugs continue to be a big problem in Africa. The fake drugs, while cheaper, often have lower levels of active pharmaceutical ingredients, and using them can lead to drug resistance over time. Getting people to complete the treatment regime is also difficult. Many stop taking the pills after a day or two, once they start to feel better. Hans Rietveld, market access director at Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis' Malaria Initiative, said doctors in Africa often over-prescribe anti-malarial drugs. “First of all, ensure that there is adequate diagnosis before initiating treatment," he said. "And that is an issue in many countries where the practice ... of diagnosing prior to treatment isn’t yet embedded in normal medical practice.”

    Some studies show that an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of cases treated as malaria in Africa aren’t actually malaria. Rietveld said expanding the use of rapid diagnostic tests in Africa could prevent overtreatment. The at-home tests can diagnose malaria with a finger $#@!. Novartis said there are now two new potential drugs in the works. Both treat malaria differently than ACTs. But getting these new drugs onto the market will take at least a few more years.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/prosp...a/3418741.html
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    HIV Treatment Lagging in West Africa
    July 11, 2016 — The prevalence of HIV/AIDS is relatively low in West Africa compared to the rest of Africa, but treatment rates there are equally low, say activists and health care workers. In Ivory Coast, about two-thirds of people living with HIV/AIDS are not on antiretroviral treatment.
    Stéphane Alliali Dié Kouamé walks one neighborhood in Abidjan every day to visit people living with HIV/AIDS. "I encourage you to take your treatment so you can get better. Have they already done the last test for the child?" Kouamé asks a woman holding a baby. "No, but I have the first one," the woman replies. "And what did it say? Oh, negative," Kouamé remarks. Treatment with antiretroviral drugs can reduce mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy and birth. Kouamé works for the local NGO Lumière Action, which runs a treatment center nearby. He says people fall out of treatment for many reasons.

    Some become discouraged. Some become misguided by charlatans touting cures. Others don't have enough money to pay for transport to the clinic. And then, there is the stigma. "Just last week, a couple came to the clinic and they recognized one of the nurses, so they didn't want to come back to get their treatment. They asked me to bring it to them," Kouamé said. "They stigmatize themselves sometimes." The clinic also offers free HIV tests. Ivory Coast made antiretroviral medications free in 2008.Since then, the percentage of people on ARV's has doubled to about 30 percent, but aid groups say that is still too low.

    Low ARV Stocks

    Clinics frequently run out of stock. "For first line treatment, there is no problem. But for the second line, there are always stocks outs. We are people living with HIV/AIDS. We are told we have a lifelong treatment to follow. We cannot understand that today there are stock outs," says Leontine Sidye of RIP PLUS, a coalition of 68 local NGO's working on HIV/AIDS. Since last year, an alert system has been implemented. When a clinic runs out of stock, it contacts RIP PLUS. The group gets in touch with the Ivorian authorities to try to get the medicine. Treatment with antiretroviral drugs can slow the virus' spread in the body and delay the onset of AIDS.

    Antiretroviral drugs or ARV's, in Ivory Coast are financed by initiatives like The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and PEPFAR (The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), along with the government, but the demand remains high and so is the cost. "We could better the situation by producing the ARV's locally. Not necessarily within the country, but within the sub-region. That could lower the costs," says Tamsir Sall, a UNAIDS representative in Ivory Coast. About 80 percent of ARV's used in Africa are imported from abroad and many countries are pushing to produce locally. South Africa recently announced the creation of a state-owned company to manufacture ARV's there.

    http://www.voanews.com/content/activ...a/3414538.html
    Last edited by waltky; 07-15-2016 at 07:33 AM.

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    Granny wantin' to know when dey gonna come up with a cure for the epizootics?...

    Two Tropical Diseases on Track for Eradication in 4 Years
    October 13, 2016 | WASHINGTON — By the year 2020, two neglected tropical diseases, lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis, and trachoma, a blinding illness, may be eliminated in the world’s poorest countries, thanks to a partnership of governments, charitable foundations and pharmaceutical companies.
    The U.S. provides the most funding for elimination of neglected tropical diseases, through the U.S. Agency for International Development. That funding, between 2006 and today, has provided 1.6 billion treatments in about 30 countries. “In the areas that USAID has supported,” NTD program coordinator Emily Wainwright said, “there are going to be 400 million people who don’t have to worry about getting lymphatic filariasis again. We will have addressed that problem. And there will be about 184 million people who aren’t going to have to worry about getting trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness.”


    A doctor examines a trachoma patient in Ethiopia

    According to the World Health Organization, neglected tropical diseases affect an estimated 1.5 billion people in the poorest countries. Other diseases that are targeted for elimination include onchocerciasis, known as river blindness, schistosomiasis or snail fever, which causes intestinal and urogenital infections, and soil-transmitted helminthiasis, a systemic illness that causes diarrhea, fever, fatigue and malnutrition. Children are disproportionately affected by the parasitic and bacterial illnesses, which stunt growth and affect brain development. Recently, WHO released data showing that in 2015, 979 million people received preventive chemotherapy for neglected tropical diseases, an increase of 121 million from 2014.

    More diseases are predicted to follow the path of elimination, according to Ariel Pablos-Mendez, assistant administrator for Global Health, Child and Maternal Survival Coordinator at USAID. “Just like in polio,” he said, “which is in the last battle of the disease to remove from the face of the Earth, or leprosy, which is down 95 percent [from] the levels we used to have 50 years ago, these diseases we are in a position right now ... to end all of the diseases of extreme poverty by 2030.” USAID’s Neglected Tropical Disease Program and the WHO have put a priority on eliminating 17 NTDs in 149 countries, where one in six people suffer from at least one of the illnesses.

    http://www.voanews.com/a/two-tropica...s/3549663.html

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