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"Gift a bed net" initiative to prevent malaria

Along with the joy of the holiday season comes the usual pressure for families. There are cards to send, cookies to bake, and gifts to wrap. However, one thing most American families don't have to worry this Christmas is finding enough money to protect their children from a life-threatening illness. That's not the case for families like Rachell Chuya and her five children in Zambia.

11 Dec 2009

NIH awards $14.6M for Eukaryotic Pathogen Genome Database Resource expansion

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Georgia have been awarded a five-year, $14.6 million contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the US National Institutes of Health, to expand and extend work on the Eukaryotic Pathogen Genome Database Resource, http://EuPathDB.org.

11 Dec 2009

AFP examines insecticide resistance's effect on malaria fight in Nigeria

Agence France-Presse examines the increase in insecticide-resistant mosquitoes in Nigeria - "the latest threat to combating malaria" in the country. "Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, contributes more than a quarter of the one million malaria deaths in Africa, according to official statistics," AFP writes.

10 Dec 2009

U.N. weather agency predicts heightened disease spread with rising temps; Globe and Mail examines potential health effects of climate change in Africa

The decade 2000-2009 "is very likely to be the warmest since record-keeping began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five warmest years," the World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, the Associated Press reports.

10 Dec 2009

West Nile Virus can become more widespread in Europe than previously thought, says new report

Potentially fatal mosquito-borne West Nile fever (WNF) can become much more widespread in Europe than previously thought, say scientists in a new report just out in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology(1).

8 Dec 2009

People infected with West Nile virus may have persistent virus in their kidneys, shows study

A new study shows that people who have been infected with West Nile virus may have persistent virus in their kidneys for years after initial infection, potentially leading to kidney problems.

8 Dec 2009

The Hill examines push to get more U.S. funding for malaria medicines

The Hill examines Medicines for Malaria Venture's (MMV) efforts to get more U.S. funding for its work. According to the newspaper, the group is "asking USAID and Congress to redirect more money beginning next year to drug research and development from a pot of funds used to cover the range of efforts to treat and prevent malaria, such as providing mosquito nets."

3 Dec 2009

Experiments explain factors behind common malarial symptoms

When people have malaria, they are infected with Plasmodium parasites, which enter the body from the saliva of a mosquito, infect cells in the liver, and then spread to red blood cells. Inside the blood cells, the parasites replicate and also begin to expose adhesive proteins on the cell surface that change the physical nature of the cells in the bloodstream.

23 Nov 2009

SynCon Chikungunya virus DNA vaccine induces protective neutralizing antibody responses in animal model

Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, announced today that the company's SynCon™ Chikungunya virus DNA vaccine induced protective neutralizing antibody responses in a preclinical non-human primate model.

18 Nov 2009

Report calls for refocusing health spending in developing countries to save children's lives

"More than 24,000 infants die daily from preventable diseases in developing countries," and child deaths have fallen in countries where governments "have shown a high level of political leadership on child health," World Vision International said in a new report (.pdf) released on Monday as part of a five-year campaign to reduce child deaths worldwide, the Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle reports.

17 Nov 2009

Sterile Insect Technique can play a vital role in malaria elimination

The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), the release of sexually sterile male insects to wipe out a pest population, is one suggested solution to the problem of malaria in Africa. A new supplement, published in BioMed Central's open access Malaria Journal, reviews the history of the technique, and features details about aspects of its application in the elimination of malaria.

16 Nov 2009

Sterile Insect Technique: A solution to the problem of malaria in Africa

16 Nov 2009

Rainfall and temperature linked with dengue fever

Research published this week in PLoS Medicine demonstrates associations between local rainfall and temperature and cases of dengue fever, which affects an estimated fifty million people per year worldwide.

16 Nov 2009

Drug companies collaborate with nonprofit organizations to fight "neglected" diseases in the developing world

Drug companies and nonprofit organizations are joining forces to develop new drugs and vaccines to target so-called "neglected" diseases that claim millions of lives in the developing world each year. Those hard-to-treat diseases include malaria, tuberculosis, dengue fever, and other conditions. That's the topic of the cover story scheduled for the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

12 Nov 2009

Human movement is a key factor for dengue spread in Brazil

Human movement is a key factor of dengue virus inflow in Rio de Janeiro, according to results from researchers based at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil. The results, based on data from a severe epidemic in 2007-2008, contribute to new understanding on the dynamics of dengue fever in the second largest city in Brazil. Details are published November 10 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

10 Nov 2009

Calbiotech awarded a SBIR contract to develop analyte specific reagents for the diagnosis of Dengue virus

Calbiotech, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material command. Under terms of the agreement, Calbiotech will develop analyte specific reagents (ASRs) for the diagnosis of Dengue virus.

6 Nov 2009

cbm's initiative to help families break the cycle of poverty and disability

How can the gift of a goat this holiday season transform the life of a child in Africa?

6 Nov 2009

Malaria experts discuss eradication at MIM conference

In a session at the 5th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan-African Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, experts discussed the tools required to eradicate the disease and highlighted insecticide and drug resistance in some parts of the world, Xinhua reports. Researchers noted that resistance to artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) has been documented in western Cambodia and "has now also been reported in the west of Thailand and in eastern Myanmar," the news service writes (Ooko/Zhuoyun, 11/5).

6 Nov 2009

Also in global health news: Kenya child mortality; DRC rape; Cape Verde dengue outbreak; Guatemala malnutrition; East Africa flooding

"The most current data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics under the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) launched on Wednesday shows mortality among children under five years stands at 7.4 percent, while that of infants is at 5.2 percent," Business Daily reports.

5 Nov 2009

New strategy to eliminate and eradicate malaria unveiled

Marking its tenth anniversary year, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) today unveiled a new strategy that sets the stage for an aggressive push targeting the long-term goal of eliminating and eradicating malaria

4 Nov 2009

Mosquito News and Research

"Gift a bed net" initiative to prevent malaria

NIH awards $14.6M for Eukaryotic Pathogen Genome Database Resource expansion

AFP examines insecticide resistance's effect on malaria fight in Nigeria

U.N. weather agency predicts heightened disease spread with rising temps; Globe and Mail examines potential health effects of climate change in Africa

West Nile Virus can become more widespread in Europe than previously thought, says new report

People infected with West Nile virus may have persistent virus in their kidneys, shows study

The Hill examines push to get more U.S. funding for malaria medicines

Experiments explain factors behind common malarial symptoms

SynCon Chikungunya virus DNA vaccine induces protective neutralizing antibody responses in animal model

Report calls for refocusing health spending in developing countries to save children's lives

Sterile Insect Technique can play a vital role in malaria elimination

Sterile Insect Technique: A solution to the problem of malaria in Africa

Rainfall and temperature linked with dengue fever

Drug companies collaborate with nonprofit organizations to fight "neglected" diseases in the developing world

Human movement is a key factor for dengue spread in Brazil

Calbiotech awarded a SBIR contract to develop analyte specific reagents for the diagnosis of Dengue virus

cbm's initiative to help families break the cycle of poverty and disability

Malaria experts discuss eradication at MIM conference

Also in global health news: Kenya child mortality; DRC rape; Cape Verde dengue outbreak; Guatemala malnutrition; East Africa flooding

New strategy to eliminate and eradicate malaria unveiled

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