User Tag List

+ Reply to Thread
Page 6 of 7 FirstFirst ... 234567 LastLast
Results 51 to 60 of 70

Thread: Malaria, typhoid, West Nile & other tropical diseases

  1. #51
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Exclamation

    Cholera outbreak in Kenya...

    Kenya cholera outbreak hits dozens at health conference
    Thu, 22 Jun 2017 : Delegates were attending a conference organised by Kenya's Ministry of Health in Nairobi.
    Nearly 50 people have contracted cholera while attending a health conference in Kenya's capital. The infected delegates were among hundreds who had gathered for the four day forum organised by the Ministry of Health at a Nairobi hotel on Tuesday. They have been isolated in a city hospital, but health officials say the number of people infected may rise. It is unclear how they caught the disease, which has led to five deaths in the past month.


    It is not clear what triggered the latest cholera outbreak

    Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera. Most of those infected will have no or mild symptoms but, in severe cases, the disease can kill within hours if left untreated. In Yemen, a large cholera outbreak is fast approaching 300,000 cases, according to UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien. He described it as a "man-made catastrophe" caused by both sides of the country's ongoing civil war.

    In a press release on 24 May, Kenya's Ministry of Health said there had been 146 cases across the country since the outbreak began. Some of those infected had attended a wedding at an upmarket estate in Nairobi. As a result, authorities put in place emergency measures to try and curb its spread. An outbreak two years ago killed 65 people across Kenya.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40369318

  2. #52
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Exclamation

    New malaria zone due to global warming...

    Climate Change Could Bring Malaria Risk to Ethiopia's Highlands
    June 26, 2017 — Ethiopia’s highlands traditionally have a built-in protection for the people who live there. The elevation and the cool temperatures have meant that malaria, the deadly mosquito-borne illness, cannot be transmitted.
    But climate change may be putting an end to that safeguard. A new study led by a researcher at the University of Maine found that since 1981, the elevation needed to protect people from malaria has risen by 100 meters. For the first time, people living in Ethiopia’s highlands could be vulnerable to the disease. “What’s happening is the conditions, at least in terms of temperature, that are suitable for malaria are slowly creeping up at higher elevations,” said Bradfield Lyon at Maine's Climate Change Institute and School of Earth and Climate Sciences. “The same thing would be true in other highland locations throughout the tropics.” "It's sort of eroding this natural buffer," he said.

    The two most common types of parasites that cause malaria in the region require consistent temperatures above 18 degrees Celsius and 15 degrees Celsius respectively. Lyon’s study found that temperatures in the Horn of Africa are rising by an average of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade due to climate change. He said this may not sound like a major change, but that over the course of the years studied (1981 to 2014), more than 6 million people who once lived areas protected from malaria may have lost that protection. Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, at 2,300 meters above sea level, still sits well above the threshold for malaria. Lyon said the communities potentially at risk are at elevations between 1,200 and 1,700 meters.


    Two children stricken down with malaria rest at the local hospital in the small village of Walikale, Congo.

    Still, he emphasized that this is simply a meteorological study. He has not seen evidence that people in the described areas actually contracted malaria. But the research is pointing out that it is possible. “It does not mean that these people, therefore, are going to get malaria. It just says that it is slowly enhancing the risk if we leave all other factors alone,” Lyon said. “I mean the hope is through interventions and so forth that we can, in fact, eradicate malaria in this and other regions of the tropics.”

    In 2015, about 212 million people worldwide fell ill with malaria and about 429,000 died, according to the World Health Organization. About nine-tenths of the cases and deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, about 214 million people fall ill with malaria each year and 438,000 people die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most vulnerable are children living in sub-Saharan Africa.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/climate-ch...s/3916448.html

  3. #53
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Red face

    Granny thinks Uncle Ferd got bit by a tsetse fly `cause he likes to sleep inna hammock alla time...

    Tsetse Fly's Weakness May Be Its Symbiotic Bacteria
    June 30, 2017 - The fly that carries African sleeping sickness may carry the seeds of its own destruction, according to new research.
    Scientists have detailed the unique relationship between the tsetse fly and bacteria in its gut the fly can't live without. The tsetse fly spreads African sleeping sickness to humans from wild animals and has caused several major epidemics in the past. The parasite responsible for sleeping sickness is one of the few pathogens able to pass from the blood into the brain. It disrupts the sleep cycle and leads to mood changes, confusion, tremors and ultimately organ failure. Researchers have long hoped to take advantage of a number of the fly's unusual properties. Like mammals, the tsetse fly lactates and gives birth to live young.



    Dead tsetse flies are seen in a laboratory in Ghibe Valley, southwest of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia



    The tsetse milk contains bacteria called Wigglesworthia that the mother passes on to its young. Despite having one of the smallest known genomes, Wigglesworthia is a big deal for the tsetse fly. Without it, the fly becomes infertile. In the report published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, researchers from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and the University of Pavia in Italy described a number of ways that the tsetse fly depends on Wigglesworthia. The bacteria supply B vitamins that the fly can't produce on its own and doesn't get from blood, its only food source. Without B vitamins, the fly can't properly nourish its young, and they starve.


    Proteins' roles


    The scientists also examined the tissue that houses the bacteria. The fly produces a special protein that guides the bacteria where they are needed. Another protein hides the bacteria from the fly's immune system. This leaves the researchers with several attack strategies as they move forward. They could try to produce drugs that target Wigglesworthia directly, or unleash the flies' immune system on the bacteria, or block one of the several pathways that the bacteria use to support the fly. "There's a lot of potential places you could throw a wrench into the works," study co-author and entomologist Geoffrey Attardo told VOA. "It's just finding a place that's optimal."


    Recent efforts to stem the spread of sleeping sickness have been largely successful. According to the World Health Organization, the number of reported cases fell from almost 40,000 in 1998 to just 2,804 in 2015. But researchers say it is still important to develop new control methods that are cheaper, easier to deploy and more effective. "During epidemics, the political will to address this is there, but then when the disease goes away, the control efforts stop," said Attardo. "Then flies come back in from wild areas, and the cycle starts again. And 20 or 30 years later, you have another epidemic."


    https://www.voanews.com/a/tsetse-fly...a/3923671.html

    See also:


    Studies Fuel Dispute Over Whether Banned Pesticides Harm Bees
    June 29, 2017 — Two major studies into how bees are affected by a group of pesticides banned in Europe gave mixed results on Thursday, fueling a row over whether the chemicals, called neonicotinoids, are safe.
    The studies, one conducted across three European countries and another in Canada, found some negative effects after exposure to neonicotinoids in wild and honeybee populations, but also some positives, depending on the environmental context. Scientists who conducted the European research - in Britain, Hungary and Germany - told reporters their overall findings suggested neonicotinoids are harmful to honeybee and wild bee populations and are "a cause for concern." But scientists representing companies who funded the work - Germany's Bayer AG and Switerland's Syngenta AG - said the results showed "no consistent effect." Several independent experts said the findings were mixed or inconclusive.


    The European Union has since 2014 had a moratorium on use of neonicotinoids - made and sold by various companies including Bayer and Syngenta - after lab research pointed to potential risks for bees, crucial for pollinating crops. But crop chemical companies say real-world evidence is not there to blame a global plunge in bee numbers in recent years on neonicotinoid pesticides alone. They argue it is a complex phenomenon due to multiple factors. A spokesman for the EU's food safety watchdog EFSA, said the agency is in the process of assessing all studies and data for a full re-evaluation of neonicotinoids, expected in November.



    A bee flies over a sunflower on a field near Frankfurt, Germany



    EFSA's scientific assessment will be crucial to a European Commission decision in consultation with EU states on whether the moratorium on neonicotinoid use should remain in place. The two studies published on Thursday, in the peer-reviewed journal Science, are important because they were field studies that sought to examine the real-world exposure of bees to pesticides in nature. Researchers who led the Canadian study concluded that worker bees exposed to neonicotinoids - which they said often came from contaminated pollen from nearby plants, not from treated crops - had lower life expectancies and their colonies were more likely to suffer from a loss of queen bees.


    On the findings of the European study, researchers told a briefing in London that exposure to neonicotinoid crops harmed honeybee colonies in two of the three countries and reduced the reproductive success of wild bees across all three. They noted, however, that results from Germany showed a positive effect on bees exposed to neonicotinoids, although they said this was temporary and the reasons behind it were unclear. "This represents the complexity of the real world," said Richard Pywell, a professor at Britain's Center of Ecology and Hydrology who co-led the work. "In certain circumstances, you may have a positive effect ... and in other circumstances you may have a negative effect" Overall, however, he said: "We are showing significant negative effects on [bees'] critical life-cycle stages, which is a cause for concern."


    Several specialists with no direct involvement in the study who were asked to assess its findings said they were mixed. Rob Smith, a professor at Britain's University of Huddersfield, said the results were "important in showing that there are detectable effects of neonicotinoid treatments on honeybees in the real world", but added: "These effects are not consistent." Lynn Dicks at the University of East Anglia said the findings "illustrate the complexity of environmental science." "If there was a really big effect of neonicotinoids on bees, in whatever circumstances they were used, it would have shown up in both of these studies," she said. Norman Carreck, an insect expert at Britain's Sussex University, said: "Whilst adding to our knowledge, the study throws up more questions than it answers."


    https://www.voanews.com/a/studies-fu...-/3921958.html

  4. #54
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Exclamation

    Dengue Outbreak in Sri Lanka...

    'Unprecedented' Dengue Outbreak Kills Nearly 300 in Sri Lanka
    July 24, 2017 - The worst-ever outbreak of dengue fever in Sri Lanka has killed nearly 300 people, with the number of cases rising rapidly.
    Sri Lanka's Ministry of Health reports that the number of dengue infections has climbed above 103,000 since the start of 2017, with 296 deaths. The number of cases this year is already nearly double the number of dengue infections recorded in all of 2016, when 55,150 people were diagnosed with the disease.


    The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are rapidly scaling up emergency assistance to help contain the outbreak in the South Asian island nation. "Dengue is endemic here, but one reason for the dramatic rise in cases is that the virus currently spreading has evolved and people lack the immunity to fight off the new strain," said Dr. Novil Wijesekara, head of health at the Sri Lanka Red Cross.



    A Sri Lankan municipal worker, center, along with army soldiers leave for Dengue fever eradication work in Colombo, Sri Lanka



    Compounding the crisis, recent monsoon rains and floods have left pools of stagnant water and rotting rain-soaked trash — ideal breeding sites for mosquitoes. Ongoing downpours and worsening sanitation conditions raise concerns the disease will continue to spread. Dengue is common in South Asia — especially during the monsoon season which runs from June to September — and, if untreated, it can be lethal.


    The International Federation of Red Cross said it had released new disaster emergency funds on Monday to help about 307,000 people in three districts where dengue is rampant. "The size of this dengue outbreak is unprecedented in Sri Lanka," Jagath Abeysinghe, president of Sri Lanka Red Cross, said in a statement.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/unpreceden...a/3957345.html

    See also:


    Australia Helping Sri Lanka Fight Dengue Outbreak
    July 20, 2017 — Australia is contributing funds to help Sri Lanka combat its worst outbreak of dengue fever, which has claimed 250 lives and infected nearly 100,000 people so far this year in the Indian Ocean island nation.
    Visiting Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Wednesday night that Australia is giving $475,000 Australian (US $377,000) to the World Health Organization to implement immediate dengue prevention, management and eradication programs in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s hospitals are overcrowded with patients, and the government has deployed soldiers, police and health officials to inspect houses and clear rotting garbage, stagnant water pools and other potential mosquito-breeding grounds across the country. Health officials blamed the public for their failure to clear puddles and piles of trash after last month’s heavy monsoon rains.



    Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, left, talks with her Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj as they leave for a delegation level meeting in New Delhi, India, July 18, 2017. Australia is contributing funds to help Sri Lanka combat its worst outbreak of dengue fever.


    The number of infections nationwide is 38 percent higher than last year, when 55,150 people were diagnosed with dengue and 97 died, according to the Health Ministry. Cases were concentrated around the main city of Colombo, though they were occurring across the tropical island nation. Bishop is on a two-day visit and will meet Thursday with government leaders. She said Australia is offering an additional $1 million (US $795,000) for a research partnership between Australia’s Monash University and Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry to test the introduction of naturally occurring Wolbachia bacteria to eradicate dengue fever from Sri Lanka.


    She said the bacteria “prevent transmission of dengue virus between humans’’ and that it has shown success during the last six years in countries such as Brazil, Columbia, Australia, India, Vietnam and Indonesia where it was piloted. The bacteria have the ability to block other mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika and Chikungunya, the Australian embassy said in a statement.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/australia-...r/3951643.html

  5. #55
    Points: 23,582, Level: 37
    Level completed: 36%, Points required for next Level: 768
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    Social10000 Experience PointsVeteran
    Brett Nortje's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    214
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Cape Town South Africa
    Posts
    2,217
    Points
    23,582
    Level
    37
    Thanks Given
    300
    Thanked 195x in 179 Posts
    Mentioned
    4 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)
    Malaria is a disease spread by blood coming into contact with other blood, pollinating the other blood with the disease. this means that it spreads like oil in water, where even one drop of oil can contaminate a whole lot of water. therefore, it is like cancer in effect, of course. to stop malaria, you need to observe the symptoms, as, without symptoms there can be no ill effects, of course. seeing as how the effects suggest a 'suffocation of natural functions,' it is logical to deduct that the body needs to clean itself up - it is like a 'cold' for the whole body, basically - maybe related to the cold in fact? this means we need only to ingest stomach acids into the body to clear it all up, as it is foreign these cells of the disease, where native cells will be unaffected, of course.

    These diseases are probably caused by the disease stressing the body out in as many areas as it can. this is due to stimulating hormones to produce as much of the cells for them to infect as possible too. they centre around these places, knowing that they produce the most like a mosquito coming in for sugary breath, of course.
    !! Thug LIfe !!

  6. The Following User Says Thank You to Brett Nortje For This Useful Post:

    waltky (08-03-2017)

  7. #56
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Cool

    Moving Malaria Treatment Closer to Home...

    As Warming Brings More Malaria, Kenya Moves Treatment Closer to Home
    August 01, 2017 — When it rains in Emusala village, a person sick with a fever can find it hard to get to the nearest health center, which requires a trip along the slippery footpaths that lead to the nearest main road some 10km (6 miles) away, in the heart of Western Kenya's Kakamega County. But if the fever spells the onset of malaria, rapid diagnosis and treatment are essential.
    That's where Nicholas Akhonya comes in. With the aid of a simple medical kit and his mobile phone, Akhonya, a trained community health volunteer, is able to diagnose villagers with malaria in their own homes, offer treatment, and refer acute cases and pregnant women to health facilities for specialized care. Malaria cases are on the increase in Kenya, and experts attribute the upsurge to changes in the climate. According to Dr. James Emisiko, coordinator for the Division of Vector Borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases in Kakamega County, mosquitoes breed particularly well in stagnant water in warm temperatures. The females feed on human blood in order to produce eggs, and if a mosquito carrying the malaria-causing plasmodium parasite bites a person, it is likely to infect them.



    Miriam Opechi, a community health volunteer in Emusala village, in Western Kenya's Kakamega County, carries out a malaria test on a resident sick with a fever



    Kenya's recent drought — the harshest in East Africa since 2011— followed by sporadic rainfall in the middle of this year has created a perfect breeding environment for mosquitoes, Emisiko told Thomson Reuters Foundation. The result is an upsurge of malaria cases, especially in the Western Kenya region and around Lake Victoria. "The only way to control deaths from this life-threatening disease is to ensure that all fever cases are tested wherever the patients are, malaria-positive cases [are] treated and all complicated cases referred to nearby health centers," the doctor said.[ He said that parents in rural areas often initially give painkillers to children with fever. When families finally seek proper medical attention, it is often too late for those who have malaria to respond to simple anti-malarial drugs, and they require expensive hospitalization instead.


    Calling in the Volunteers


    To tackle the problem, for the past two years county governments in malaria-prone areas have worked with non-governmental organizations to train community health volunteers to diagnose the disease in patients' homes, using rapid diagnostic kits. The volunteers then treat those who test positive, and refer complicated cases to the nearest health center. "In case of any complication, all I need is to have power on my mobile phone so that I can communicate with medical experts using the toll-free number for further advice," said Akhonya, one of the volunteers. The U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that there are 6.7 million new clinical cases of malaria in Kenya each year and 4,000 deaths, most of them in Western Kenya.



    Community health volunteers in Emulsala village, in Western Kenya's Kakamega County, use mobile phones to report serious malaria cases to better equipped clinics and hospitals



    According to Moses Makokha, clinical officer in charge of the Bumala-A sub-county health center in Busia County, some malaria cases can be fatal little more than 24 hours after symptoms occur, especially in children below the age of five years and pregnant women. In pregnant women, malaria can lead to miscarriage or other serious complications, Makokha said. "It is always an easy disease to manage - but only if it is identified at the onset of the fever and treated immediately using the correct medication," Makokha said. Kakamega County's government has trained 4,200 community health volunteers to manage simple malaria, working with Community Asset Building and Development (CABDA), a local NGO, and with support from Amref Health Africa, an international Kenyan medical charity headquartered in Nairobi.


    The volunteers are supplied with test kits and basic drugs to treat the disease at no cost to patients. Treating malaria at the village level, among other interventions, has helped reduce the prevalence of the disease in Kakamega County from 38 percent in 2013 to 27 percent in 2016, according to County Health Executive Peninah Mukabane. "This is one of the success stories that we are all proud of," Ephy Imbali, CABDA's executive director, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.


    Cash - and Status

    See also:


    BASF Unveils New Mosquito Net in Battle Against Malaria
    July 13, 2017 — A new mosquito net made by German chemicals company BASF has been given an interim recommendation by the World Health Organization (WHO), containing a new class of insecticide that the company hopes will aid the fight against malaria.
    Death rates from malaria have dropped by 60 percent since 2000, according to the WHO, but attempts to end one of the world's deadliest diseases — which kills around 430,000 people a year — are under threat as mosquitoes become increasingly resistant to measures such as insecticide-treated bed nets and anti-malarial drugs. BASF's new net is based on chlorfenapyr, which has been used in agriculture and urban pest control for over two decades, but BASF reworked it to make it effective on mosquito nets and meet targets for the public health market.



    Two children and their mother rest under a mosquito net in the small village of Walikale, Congo



    It said the net will provide protection for at least three years or 20 washes. The new Interceptor G2 insecticide-treated net is expected to be available to health ministries and aid organizations beginning toward the end of this year, BASF said. A WHO spokesman said the Geneva-based organization's interim recommendation meant it still had to evaluate the net's public health impact and it was requesting more data from the chemicals company.


    BASF is also waiting for the WHO to evaluate another chlorfenapyr product, an indoor spray for walls and ceilings called Sylando 240SC. "This development breakthrough strengthens my personal belief that we really can be the generation to end malaria for good," said Egon Weinmueller, head of BASF's public health business.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/basf-new-m...a/3943874.html

    Related:


    Malaria Genome Study Reveals Savvy Parasite
    July 13, 2017 — The malaria parasite owes its devastating success to a finely tuned genome that can survive attacks and evade human immune defenses because it retains only the bare essential genes it needs to thrive, scientists have found.
    In a detailed study analyzing more than half the genes in the genome of Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria, researchers found that two-thirds of those genes are essential for survival. This is the largest proportion of essential genes found in any organism studied to date, they said.



    This is a colorized electron micrograph of a malaria-causing Plasmodium parasite, right, attaching to and invading a human red blood cell. The inset shows the attachment point at higher magnification.


    The scientists discovered that the parasite often disposes of genes that produce proteins that give its presence away to its host's immune system. This allows malaria to swiftly change its appearance to the human immune system and hence build up resistance to a vaccine, posing problems for the development of effective shots. "Our study found that below the surface the parasite is more of a Formula 1 race car than a clunky people carrier: The parasite is fine-tuned and retains the absolute essential genes needed for growth," said Julian Rayner, who co-led this study at Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.


    Good and bad


    He said this discovery, published Thursday in the journal Cell, had both positive and negative implications. "The bad news is it can easily get rid of the genes behind the targets we are trying to design vaccines for, but the flip side is there are many more essential gene targets for new drugs than we previously thought," he said. Malaria kills about half a million people a year, the vast majority of them children and babies in the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Beyond that, almost half the world's population is at risk of becoming infected with malaria, and more than 200 million people fall sick with it each year, according to World Health Organization figures. Despite decades of scientific endeavor, the genetics of Plasmodium parasites have proved tricky to decipher.


    This is partly because they are ancient organisms and about half their genes have no similar genes — homologs — in any other organism, Rayner's team explained, making it difficult for scientists to find clues to their function. Francisco Javier Gamo, a malaria expert at GlaxoSmithKline, a British drugmaker active in this field of research, said the highest achievement for malaria scientists would be to discover genes that are essential across all of the parasite life cycle stages. "If we could target those with drugs, it would leave malaria with nowhere to hide," he said.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/malaria-ge...e/3943412.html

  8. #57
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Cool

    Despite Boko Haram...

    WHO: Nearly 900,000 Children in Nigeria Receive Anti-malaria Drugs
    August 04, 2017 — The World Health Organization reports it has provided anti-malaria drugs to nearly 900,000 children in areas in northeast Nigeria formerly held by Boko Haram militants.
    The effort is part of a new strategy to tackle malaria, a major killer of children younger than 5 years old. The director of WHO's Global Malaria Program, Pedro Alonso, tells VOA the agency has completed the first round of an emergency approach to stop the disease. Alonso estimates about 10,000 lives will be saved by providing anti-malaria drugs to the same 900,000 children every month until November, when the period of high transmission will be over.



    A woman carrying a baby holds a treated mosquito net during a malaria prevention action in Nigeria, April 21, 2016. WHO is providing anti-malaria drugs to children in northeast Nigeria in an effort to combat the disease.



    He says the drug clears the parasites that might already have invaded a child's system and provides protection for three to four weeks. "By repeating this operation to the same children every month over the next four or five months, which is the high transmission area," Alonso said, "we may potentially — unfortunately, it will not be perfect and therefore we will not be able to stop all deaths — but, we should be able to have a massive impact in terms of prevention of disease and death in that specific population group, which is the highest risk group and where mortality concentrates."


    WHO estimates there are more than 8,000 cases of malaria every week, including seven deaths, among northeastern Nigeria's population of 3.7 million people. There are an estimated 1.1 million children aged three months to five years in the region.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/who-childr...s/3972734.html
    See also:


    Famine Looms in Former Boko Haram Stronghold in NE Nigeria
    May 30, 2017 — The United Nations is warning that more than 1.4 million people in northeastern Nigeria could face famine by September because of a severe funding shortage. To date, only 28 percent of the U.N. appeal for more than $1 billion to provide humanitarian aid for nearly seven million people has been received.
    Since Boko Haram militants began their armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria in 2009, the United Nations estimates more than 20,000 people have been killed, nearly two million are internally displaced inside the country, and about 200,000 have taken refuge in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Government forces have recaptured much of the territory held by Boko Haram, but the security situation remains fragile.


    The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, says food is in short supply and traditional coping measures have been exhausted. "Although the humanitarian response has increased substantially, we have not turned the corner yet," he said. "If the funding situation is not sustained, the situation can easily relapse into a famine situation." Kallon says 43,000 people already are in a state of famine. Nigeria has entered the so-called lean season when food stocks are at their lowest. U.N. estimates indicate 2.8 million people will be in urgent need of food between June and September. This is also the rainy season, a period when disease outbreaks are expected.




    A mother feeds her malnourished child at a feeding center run by Doctors Without Borders in Maiduguri, Nigeria



    The situation means some of the 450,000 severely malnourished children could die, according to Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria Peter Lundberg. "If they die, they will most likely die from disease that could be easily prevented if their immune system had been much stronger," Lundberg told VOA. "So, what we will see is that people will die from diarrhea disease or malaria or anything else that they normally would be able to survive if they were in a much better nutritional condition."


    The United Nations says people in northeastern Nigeria also are living through a protection crisis. It says thousands are victims of sexual violence and exploitation. According to government statistics, tens of thousands of children and women have been used by Boko Haram, some as suicide bombers.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/famine-for...a/3877695.html
    Related:

    Insecurity, Underfunding Hamper Nigeria Hunger Relief
    May 25, 2017 — Aid agencies warn that humanitarian efforts against hunger in northeastern Nigeria are dangerously underfunded and some communities remain cut off from aid and their farms as the military continues to battle Boko Haram.
    Communities in northeastern Nigeria are facing the dual threats of hunger and the terrorist group known as Boko Haram. The zone has been identified by aid agencies as one of four conflict-torn parts of the world at risk of famine this year. The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition will reach 450,000 this year in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

    Scott Paul, a senior humanitarian policy advisor for the international charity organization Oxfam America, was recently in northeastern Nigeria. He said the biggest driver for the humanitarian emergency is the inability for residents to access their farmlands, fishing sites and the markets. “I spoke with people who had to flee villages that were captured by Boko Haram and they’ve since come back but they can’t go a kilometer out of town to farm. Right now people are coming home sometimes under false pretenses," he said. "They’re being told that their homeland and home areas are safe and they’re coming home to find that the towns themselves might be safe but the farmlands outside aren’t safe. The markets aren’t safe. The roads aren’t safe. And in some areas that we’re working in there isn’t even clean and safe water to be procured.”


    Internally displaced persons wait to be served with food at Dikwa camp, in northeast Nigeria's Borno state

    Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency says people internally displaced by the conflict can voluntarily go back to liberated areas as long as they feel safe. The Nigerian army provides road escorts several times a week from Maiduguri to certain communities. But aid groups say many communities are simply not prepared for the large numbers of people coming back. The Norwegian Refugee Council noted more than one million people have returned to northeast Nigeria since October 2015, and they are returning to towns that have no basic services or infrastructure. Nearly one million homes were destroyed or damaged by years of fighting, according to Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima.

    Earlier this month, Shettima told reporters it is still not safe for many internally displaced people to return to their homes. The governor said the IDP camps will remain open indefinitely, but that he hopes Borno state will be safe enough for full rehabilitation very soon. The state capital, Maiduguri, is home to more than a dozen camps for those displaced by Boko Haram. Those camps have repeatedly been targeted by suicide bombings.

    MORE
    Last edited by waltky; 08-04-2017 at 11:49 PM.

  9. #58
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Exclamation

    Vietnam Dengue Cases go up 42%...
    Vietnam Dengue Cases Soar 42 Percent
    August 18, 2017 — Vietnam has been battling raging dengue fever outbreaks, with more than 10,000 new infections reported in the past week stretching its medical system.
    The number of admitted patients represents a 42 percent increase over the same period last year along with seven more deaths, the Ministry of Health said Friday. A total of 90,626 people have been infected, of whom 76,848 are hospitalized and 24 have died. The ministry attributed the rise of dengue outbreaks to higher temperatures, more rains and rapid urbanization that promote the breeding of virus-carrying mosquitoes.

    Hospitals strained

    Dr. Vu Minh Dien of the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, where the most severe cases were being treated, said that 800-1,000 people have been checking in daily complaining of fever. That compares to only several cases that reported to the hospital in June and July last year, he said. Dien said about 300 dengue patients were being treated, stretching the hospital’s resources, including longer working hours without weekend leaves.


    Mosquitoes with the dengue-blocking Wolbachia bacteria were released in the Tubiacanga neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 24, 2014. Similar actions took place in Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia to fight dengue fever.

    Tran Thi Xuyen, a fruit and vegetable seller in a small market in Son La province, said she did not know how she contracted dengue fever, which also infected her fellow saleswoman. “I took antibiotics prescribed by the local district hospital for four days, but the fever did not go away and I admitted myself to this hospital where doctors said I had dengue fever,” she said from her hospital bed.

    Mosquito-killing campaign

    There is no cure for any of the four strains of the mosquito-borne virus that causes high fever, exhaustion and in some cases a vicious skin rash. Patients most at risk of dying are the elderly, children or those with other medical complications. Hanoi and the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City are the hardest hit.

    The government Thursday urged residents to actively engage in killing mosquitoes and mosquito larvae, particularly at construction sites and housing for workers. “The joint efforts by the people as well as our political system in searching and eliminating mosquito larvae, emptying water containers, which are fertile for larvae to breed, and spraying chemicals to kill mosquitoes are key factors to curb dengue fever,” Dien said.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/vietnam-de...s/3990852.html
    See also:

    Researchers Blame Saudi-Led Coalition for 'Worst Cholera Outbreak in the World' in Yemen
    August 18, 2017 - The majority of deaths from Yemen's cholera outbreak have occurred in rebel-controlled areas cut off from supplies due to airstrikes and blockades by a Saudi-led military coalition, according to research published on Friday.
    The study by London's Queen Mary University found eight out of 10 cholera deaths took place in regions controlled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have fought a two-year war against Saudi-aligned forces backing Yemen's government. Yemen is battling against the "world's worst cholera outbreak", according to the World Health Organization (WHO). More than half a million people have been infected with cholera since the epidemic began four months ago and almost 2,000 people have died, the WHO said on Monday. "Saudi-led airstrikes have destroyed vital infrastructure, including hospitals and public water systems, hit civilian areas, and displaced people into crowded and insanitary conditions", Jonathan Kennedy, Andrew Harmer and David McCoy, the study's researchers, wrote.


    People are treated for suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen

    The Saudi ministry for foreign affairs did not immediately respond to written questions or telephone calls. Yemen's devastating civil war has pitted a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia against an Iran-backed armed Houthi group, and economic collapse has made it difficult to deal with disease outbreaks such as cholera and mass hunger. The study compared data from the WHO with maps of government-controlled and rebel-controlled areas. The researchers found 78 percent of cholera cases and 81 percent of deaths from cholera occurred in Houthi-controlled regions. Only 10.4 per cent of deaths occurred in government-controlled areas.

    The researchers said the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for the deadly outbreak, by causing shortages of food, medical supplies, fuel and chlorine, and restricting humanitarian access. Each day there are more than 5,000 new cases of cholera, which causes acute diarrhea and dehydration, in Yemen where the health system has collapsed after more than two years of war, according to the WHO. Cholera, spread by ingestion of food or water tainted with human feces, can kill within hours if untreated. It has been largely eradicated in developed countries equipped with sanitation systems and water treatment.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/researcher...n/3992205.html

  10. #59
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Exclamation

    Cholera in deepest darkest Africa...

    WHO: Over 500 Dead as Congo Cholera Epidemic Spreads
    Monday 11th September, 2017 - More than 500 people have died so far in a cholera epidemic that is sweeping the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Outbreaks of the water-borne disease occur regularly in Congo, mainly due to poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean drinking water.
    But this year's epidemic, which has already hit at least 10 urban areas including the capital Kinshasa, is particularly worrying as it comes as about 1.4 million people have been displaced by violence in the central Kasai region.


    The WHO said at least 528 people had died and the epidemic had spread to 20 of Congo's 26 provinces. 'The risk of spread remains very high towards the Grand Kasai region, where degraded sanitary and security conditions further increase vulnerability in the face of the epidemic,' the WHO said in a statement.

    So far, health officials have recorded more than 24,000 suspected cases of the disease across the vast nation this year, averaging more than 1,500 new cases per week since the end of July. The WHO sent a team of experts including epidemiologists and public health specialists to Congo this month in an effort to contain the disease's spread.

    http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/2...idemic-spreads

  11. #60
    Points: 39,654, Level: 48
    Level completed: 69%, Points required for next Level: 496
    Overall activity: 0.1%
    Achievements:
    VeteranTagger First Class25000 Experience PointsSocial
    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
    Karma
    5662
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    8,859
    Points
    39,654
    Level
    48
    Thanks Given
    2,515
    Thanked 2,140x in 1,616 Posts
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Tagged
    0 Thread(s)

    Exclamation

    WHO: Urgent Action Under Way to Prevent Spread of Cholera in West Africa...

    Urgent Action Under Way to Prevent Spread of Cholera in West Africa
    September 18, 2017 — An emergency vaccination campaign is getting under way in northeastern Nigeria to prevent a deadly cholera outbreak from spreading to other countries.
    The World Health Organization reports the potentially devastating cholera situation is emerging in Borno State in northeastern Nigeria. During the past few months, it says 2,600 suspected cases of this fatal disease, including 48 deaths, have occurred in this former stronghold of Boko Haram. The militant group has been waging war to establish an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria. Dominique Legros is cholera coordinator for WHO’s department for pandemic and epidemic diseases. He says the outbreak, which is centered in camps for internally displaced people, is spreading to other areas of northeastern Nigeria, toward Chad and northern Cameroon.


    A cholera patient lies in a treatment centre run by Medecins Sans Frontieres on Macauley Street in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown

    He says 900,000 people in the state will receive the oral cholera vaccine to quickly contain the spread of the disease. “Once it is out of the box, once it has spread, it is very, very difficult to contain and we have a huge number of cases and deaths," he said. "So, this outbreak in Nigeria, hopefully, will not reach Chad, because in Chad already, we have an alert in the eastern part of the country towards the border with Sudan, 344 cases, 49 deaths.” Legros says this comes to a 14 percent case fatality. He notes this is very high for a cholera outbreak, which usually has a case fatality rate of less than one percent.

    WHO estimates the global cholera disease burden at around 2.9 million suspected cases, including 95,000 deaths. It reports Yemen has the world's worst cholera epidemic, with nearly 690,000 suspected cases and more than 2,000 deaths. The agency expresses concern about the situation in Africa, where it reports tens of thousands of suspected cases and thousands of deaths in, among others; Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Tanzania.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/urgent-act...a/4033384.html

+ Reply to Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts