Lymphatic filariasis is a parasitic disease caused by microscopic, thread-like worms. The adult worms only live in the human lymph system. The lymph system maintains the body's fluid balance and fights infections. Lymphatic filariasis is spread from person to person by mosquitoes.
People with the disease can suffer from lymphedema and elephantiasis and in men, swelling of the scrotum, called hydrocele. Lymphatic filariasis is a leading cause of permanent disability worldwide. Communities frequently shun and reject women and men disfigured by the disease. Affected people frequently are unable to work because of their disability, and this harms their families and their communities.
An international team of scientists have demonstrated that a simple, low-cost intervention holds the potential to eradicate a debilitating tropical disease that threatens nearly 1.4 billion people in more than six dozen countries.
Filariasis refers to a group of diseases caused by parasitic worms, which are transmitted by blood feeding insects. Two species infect the lymphatic and blood systems causing lymphatic filariasis, which in some people can lead to gross swelling of the limbs and 'elephantiasis'.
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) has received US$ 10 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue their breakthrough drug discovery and development research against human filariasis - parasitic worm infections which cause river blindness and elephantiasis, some of the world’s most debilitating diseases affecting up to 150 million people in 83 countries throughout the tropics.
Days after two landmark resolutions were adopted at the World Health Assembly - on neglected tropical diseases and on research and development, financing and coordination for the health needs of developing countries - over 400 scientists, representatives and ministers of health, ambassadors, national control programme representatives, African regulators, health workers, public health experts, and activists from 21 African countries and 10 others from around the world gather in Nairobi to take stock of health innovation for neglected diseases in Africa over the past decade.
Queen's University Belfast has been announced as a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Scientists at the University's Institute for Global Food Security have been awarded grants to pursue two Innovative global health and development research projects aimed at tackling tropical diseases.
A new diagnostic test for a worm infection that can lead to severe enlargement and deformities of the legs and genitals is far more sensitive than the currently used test, according to results of a field study in Liberia, in West Africa, where the infection is endemic.
In a post on the PLoS "Speaking of Medicine" blog, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) editor-in-chief Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, reviews progress being made toward the elimination of NTDs through mass drug administration and other efforts.
VOA News reports on "a new public health strategy, tested in Nigeria," which is "raising hopes" that the tropical disease known as lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis, can be eliminated.
Anacor Pharmaceuticals today announced that it has signed a research agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (the Gates Foundation) to discover drug candidates intended to treat two filarial worm diseases (onchocerciasis, or river blindness, and lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis) and tuberculosis.
"Almost certainly, in its deliberations [to select a new Pope,] the conclave of cardinals will consider a number of difficult and well-publicized problems now facing the Catholic Church," Peter Hotez, co-editor in chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, writes in the journal's "Speaking of Medicine" blog.
"It's not a race, exactly, but there's an intriguing uncertainty about whether a former U.S. president or a software magnate will cause the next deliberate extinction of a species in the wild. Will Jimmy Carter eradicate Guinea worm before Bill Gates eradicates polio?" Wall Street Journal commentator Matt Ridley asks in his "Mind & Matter" column.
In this Lancet commentary, John Vertefeuille, Scott Dowell, Jean Domercant and Jordan Tappero of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examine the state of the public health system in Haiti three years after a 7.0 earthquake struck the country, writing, "Haiti is starting to show that its health services have expanded far beyond those in place before the earthquake occurred."
WHO reports unprecedented progress against 17 neglected tropical diseases, thanks to a new global strategy, a regular supply of quality assured, cost-effective medicines and support from global partners.
Two UCSF teams have received a total of $16 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study new ways to significantly reduce childhood mortality and disease in developing nations.
"Since the last case of naturally occurring smallpox, in 1977, there have been three major international conferences devoted to the concept of disease eradication," an article in the New England Journal of Medicine reports and includes "a brief review of five diseases selected for eradication or elimination that illustrate the potential benefits of such efforts and some of the challenges they pose."
The Washington Post reports on Haiti's efforts to fight lymphatic filariasis, a parasitic mosquito-borne disease that can cause elephantiasis and is present in 80 percent of the country.
Can an innovative wallpaper-like liner help reduce the number of cases of malaria, and if so, will it be cost effective? Donald S. Shepard, a professor at the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy at the Heller School wants to know. And he has gotten the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help. A grant, totaling nearly $500,000 over the next three years, will allow Shepard and collaborators to pursue their research in Kenya and Tanzania.
Thirteen drug companies, the governments of the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lions Club and other smaller charitable organizations on Monday announced a joint effort to tackle 10 neglected tropical diseases in a coordinated fashion.
The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and Abbott have signed a four-year joint research and non-exclusive licensing agreement to undertake research on new treatments for several of the world's most neglected tropical diseases, including Chagas disease, helminth infections, leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness.
"The U.K. government has announced a fivefold increase in spending on combating neglected tropical diseases [NTDs] as part of an international effort to help rid the world of a group of infectious diseases that currently affect one billion people and kill more than half a million every year," BMJ reports.
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