Malaria drug causes brain damage that mimics PTSD: case study

[Peter1469]

Malaria drug causes brain damage that mimics PTSD: case study

There was a rash of SoF guys coming home from Africa and murdering their families before killing themselves.

The case of a service member diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder but found instead to have brain damage caused by a malaria drug raises questions about the origin of similar symptoms in other post-9/11 veterans.

According to the case study published online in Drug Safety Case Reports in June, a U.S. military member sought treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for uncontrolled anger, insomnia, nightmares and memory loss.




The once-active sailor, who ran marathons and deployed in 2009 to East Africa, reported stumbling frequently, arguing with his family and needing significant support from his staff while on the job due to cognitive issues.




Physicians diagnosed the service member with anxiety, PTSD and a thiamine deficiency. But after months of treatment, including medication, behavioral therapy and daily doses of vitamins, little changed.

[waltky]

New strain of 'super malaria' in SE Asia...

Alarm as 'super malaria' spreads in South East Asia
22 Sept.`17 - The rapid spread of "super malaria" in South East Asia is an alarming global threat, scientists are warning.

This dangerous form of the malaria parasite cannot be killed with the main anti-malaria drugs. It emerged in Cambodia but has since spread through parts of Thailand, Laos and has arrived in southern Vietnam. The team at the Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok said there was a real danger of malaria becoming untreatable. Prof Arjen Dondorp, the head of the unit, told the BBC News website: "We think it is a serious threat. "It is alarming that this strain is spreading so quickly through the whole region and we fear it can spread further [and eventually] jump to Africa."

Failing treatments

In a letter, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the researchers detail the "recent sinister development" that has seen resistance to the drug artemisinin emerge. About 212 million people are infected with malaria each year. It is caused by a parasite that is spread by blood-sucking mosquitoes and is a major killer of children. The first choice treatment for malaria is artemisinin in combination with piperaquine.

Malaria is caused by a parasite spread by blood-sucking mosquitoes

But as artemisinin has become less effective, the parasite has now evolved to resist piperaquine too. There have now been "alarming rates of failure", the letter says. Prof Dondorp said the treatment was failing around a third of the time in Vietnam while in some regions of Cambodia the failure rate was closer to 60%. Resistance to the drugs would be catastrophic in Africa, where 92% of all malaria cases happen.

'Against the clock'

There is a push to eliminate malaria in the Greater Mekong sub-region before it is too late. Prof Dondorp added: "It's a race against the clock - we have to eliminate it before malaria becomes untreatable again and we see a lot of deaths. "If I'm honest, I'm quite worried." Michael Chew, from the Wellcome Trust medical research charity, said: "The spread of this malaria 'superbug' strain, resistant to the most effective drug we have, is alarming and has major implications for public health globally. "Around 700,000 people a year die from drug-resistant infections, including malaria. "If nothing is done, this could increase to millions of people every year by 2050."

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41351160

[waltky]

Malaria Outbreak at Kenyan Refugee Camp Kills 4 ...
Malaria Outbreak Kills 4 at Kenyan Refugee Camp
October 20, 2017 - A malaria outbreak has killed at least four people at a refugee camp in northwestern Kenya, according to local residents and health officials.

Hundreds of people have come down with the infectious disease at the Kalobeyei refugee complex in Kenya's Turkana County. "Already four to six people have died due to malaria," Galama Guyo, a health care professional at Kalobeyei, told VOA's Horn of Africa service. "Weekly, we report more than 200 malaria cases, especially people with low body resistance [immunity]."

An aerial view shows houses at the Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana District, northwest of Kenya's capital Nairobi, June 20, 2015. A malaria outbreak in the nearby Kalobeyei refugee complex has killed at least 4 people.

Health care providers do not have enough drugs to treat patients, and there is no major hospital in the area, so some patients have to travel to up to 30 kilometers for treatment, he said. The type of malaria hitting the camps is plasmodium falciparum, one of four types common in the Horn of Africa, said Guyo.


The U.N. refugee agency is tracking the situation at Kalobeyei and the nearby town of Kakuma, says the agency's communication director in Nairobi, Yvonne Ndege. "Our health partners have mobilized some resources to ensure they procure enough drugs and diagnostic kits to treat the increased cases of malaria that we have seen in Kakuma and Kalobeyei," she said. "UNHCR is also planning to provide additional drugs to help address the situation." Located in a very arid region, Kalobeyei hosts thousands of African immigrants, mostly from Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.


https://www.voanews.com/a/malaria-de...p/4079253.html

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - rich folks need to donate more money to fight malaria...

WHO: Global Progress Against Malaria at Risk as Funding Stalls
November 29, 2017 — Many countries are moving toward eliminating malaria, among them Madagascar, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

But a World Health Organization report warns that in other areas, progress has stalled. Malaria cases increased by more than 20 percent from 2015 to 2016 in eight African countries — including Rwanda, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the same time, funding for malaria prevention and treatment has leveled off, reaching $2.7 billion in 2016, less than half of the 2020 target. "That amount of funding internationally has plateaued; possibly it has reached the realistic maximum now," said David Conway, a professor from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "And it has always been assumed, indeed it has been important that countries themselves should commit to funding malaria control. And I think the big opportunity now is for those countries to step up and realize that this is good value."

A woman carrying a baby holds a treated mosquito net during a malaria prevention action at Ajah in Eti Osa East district of Lagos, Nigeria

Overall, Africa continues to bear the highest burden of the disease, with approximately 401,000 deaths in 2016, a slight decrease from the previous year. In addition to improving the coverage of existing methods of malaria prevention, the WHO calls for urgent investment in new tools. "More research is needed to develop an effective malaria vaccine that could cover the populations that, at the moment, have high malaria rates and that, perhaps, do not use the available interventions even when they are being funded," Conway said.

Several malaria vaccines are under development. The WHO is planning a major trial of the so-called RTS,S vaccine starting next year in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi. However, its latest report warns the world is at a crossroads. Without better funding and more effective rollout of tools to tackle malaria, the progress made in recent decades could be undone.

https://www.voanews.com/a/who-global...s/4141361.html

[waltky]

FDA Approves Drug to Stop Some Malaria Relapses...

FDA Approves Drug to Stop Some Malaria Relapses
July 21, 2018 - U.S. regulators Friday approved a simpler, one-dose treatment to prevent relapses of malaria.

Standard treatment now takes two weeks and studies show many patients don’t finish taking every dose. Malaria is caused by parasites that are spread to people through mosquito bites. Anti-malarial drugs can cure the initial infection, but parasites can get into the liver, hide in a dormant form and cause recurrences months or years later. A second drug is used to stop relapses. The new drug, GlaxoSmithKline’s Krintafel, only targets the kind of malaria that mainly occurs in South America and Southeast Asia. Most malaria cases and deaths are in Africa, and they involve another species.

The GlaxoSmithKline offices in London. On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved GlaxoSmithKline’s Krintafel, a simpler, one-dose treatment, to prevent relapses of a type of malaria.

In testing, one dose of Krintafel worked about the same as two weeks of the standard treatment, preventing relapses in about three-quarters of patients in six months, the company said. The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug for patients 16 and older, according to GlaxoSmithKline. The company said it’s the first new treatment in six decades for preventing relapses. GlaxoSmithKline plans to apply soon for approval in Brazil, then other countries where the malaria type is common. It says it will sell the pills at low cost in poor countries.


Millions infected worldwide


Worldwide, malaria infects more than 200 million people a year and kills about half a million, most of them children in Africa. It causes fever, headache, chills and other flulike symptoms. The malaria type Krintafel targets causes about 8.5 million infections annually. The British drugmaker, working with the World Health Organization, is also developing what could be the world’s first malaria vaccine, but early testing indicates it’s not very effective. Prevention now focuses on using insecticides and bed nets.


https://www.voanews.com/a/fda-approv...e/4492286.html