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Malaria transmission to decline in Burundi because of global warming

Malaria transmission will not increase because of global warming in the African nation of Burundi according to a statistical analysis by researchers in Austria and Burundi. Writing in the International Journal of Global Warming, the team explains that rising temperatures will lead to lower humidity and rainfall which will shorten the lifespan of mosquitoes carrying malaria.

3 Feb 2011

Surge of mosquito borne disease in South Australia following wet weather

Rising water in the Murray River has caused a surge in mosquito-borne infections in South Australia. The water is rising in the Murray in SA as floodwaters move downstream from the eastern states.

2 Feb 2011

Exposure to infections in early childhood can protect child from eczema later in life: Study

Exposure to worm infections in the womb may protect a newborn infant from developing eczema, a study funded by the Wellcome Trust suggests. A large trial in Uganda showed that treating a pregnant woman for worm infections increased her child's chances of developing the allergic skin disease.

29 Jan 2011

Opinions: Global poverty; Global Fund corruption; Tackling poverty, environmental issues

Ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gert, both of the Brookings Institution's Global Economy and Development program, reflect on "Poverty's Success Story," a Washington Post opinion piece. They note that the last time the World Bank issued global poverty statistics (the number of people in the world living on less than $1.25 each day) was 2005.

28 Jan 2011

Vaccination campaigns to stop yellow fever spread get underway in E. Africa

Individuals traveling across East Africa on Friday were ordered to begin receiving mandatory yellow fever vaccines in an effort "to contain an outbreak of the disease in Uganda," which has sickened an estimated 190 people, resulting in 48 deaths as of Dec. 30, 2010, the Citizen reports (Ubwani, 1/22).

25 Jan 2011

Dr. Kathleen receives NSF grant to measure how climate change will impact risk of malaria, dengue fever

Thanks to a $250,000 National Science Foundation grant we may soon know how climate change will impact our risk of malaria and dengue fever. Dr. Kathleen Schreiber, professor of geography at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, received the grant from the NSF sponsored Vector-Borne Disease Project to measure how environmental temperature change influences the transmission and disease risk of the two diseases.

19 Jan 2011

RTS,S offers 46 percent protection against malaria for at least 15 months after vaccination, Study finds

A Phase II trial published Friday in Lancet Infectious Diseases has shown that RTS,S, the "experimental malaria vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline provides African children with long-lasting protection" against malaria, Reuters reports.

18 Jan 2011

News outlets examine reaction to WHO plan to contain drug-resistant malaria

In follow-up coverage of the WHO's announcement Wednesday of a plan to contain the spread of artemisinin-resistant malaria, news outlets examined the scope of the problem, reactions to the plan and speculations of how the anticipated $175 million annual cost would be funded.

14 Jan 2011

WHO, Roll Back Malaria partnership launch initiative to contain artemisinin-resistant malaria

The WHO and Roll Back Malaria partnership (RBM) on Wednesday launched an initiative to "stop a form of drug-resistant malaria from spreading from Southeast Asia to Africa, where millions of lives could be at risk," Reuters reports. "It would cost about $175 million a year to contain and prevent the global spread of the artemisinin-resistant parasite which first emerged along the Thai-Cambodian border in 2007, the United Nations agency said," according to the news agency (Nebehay, 1/12).

13 Jan 2011

Washington Post examines theories on climate change's potential impact on disease spread

The Washington Post examines the debate among scientists over the impact climate change might have on the spread of infectious diseases, and the potential for a rise in the number of tropical diseases in the U.S. The article describes how extreme weather conditions, such as flooding and drought - "thought to be linked to the warming of the oceans and to changes in the precipitation cycle" - can create ideal conditions for waterborne disease.

13 Jan 2011

PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases features Inovio’s Chikungunya DNA vaccine

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in the development of novel therapeutic and preventive vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced today the publication of a scientific paper highlighting positive results from Inovio's multi-antigen Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) DNA vaccine in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

12 Jan 2011

Floods may become a healthcare challenge, warns the AMA

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has issued warnings to the Queensland health authorities to prepare for the rise of illnesses and injuries caused by the floods.

10 Jan 2011

Insecticidal nets do not always work against diseases transmitted by insect bites

Longlasting insecticidal nets yielded an important breakthrough in malaria prevention, but this does not automatically mean they always work against diseases transmitted by insect bites. Against the transmission of kala azar disease in India and Nepal they did not have an effect. This was reported by an international group of researchers, led by Marleen Boelaert of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, in the reputed British Medical Journal.

5 Jan 2011

Trial to eliminate deadly Dengue begins

The 12 week programme costing $18 million named ‘Eliminate Dengue’ has commenced. Mosquitoes bearing a special bacteria would be released into the wild around Cairns as part of a trial to rid the area of the insects that carry Dengue fever.

4 Jan 2011

Met-FISC complex formation critical step in juvenile hormone signaling pathway

Just as raging hormones are part of the process of a child's maturation through the teen years to adulthood, juvenile hormones, a group of insect isoprenoids, play an important role as butterflies, fruit flies and mosquitoes transform their body structures as they molt from larva to pupa and then adults.

28 Dec 2010

EPA to clean up vector-breeding site to eliminate dengue epidemic

To control the severe dengue epidemic, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said the first priority is to locate diagnosed patients and eliminate virus-carrying mosquitoes, the vectors of Dengue fever, and called on all people to clean up mosquito breeding sites.

23 Dec 2010

Study provides evidence on prevalence of two separate mosquito species which carry malaria parasite

In notable back-to-back papers appearing in the prestigioous journal Science in October, teams of researchers, one led by Nora Besansky, a professor of biological sciences and a member of the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame, provided evidence that Anopheles gambiae, which is one of the major mosquito carriers of the malaria parasite in Sub-Saharan Africa, is evolving into two separate species with different traits.

21 Dec 2010

Researchers show how malaria parasites infect red blood cells, impede blood flow to organs

Although the incidence of malaria has declined in all but a few countries worldwide, according to a World Health Organization report earlier this month, malaria remains a global threat. Nearly 800,000 people succumbed to the mosquito-borne disease in 2009, nearly all of them in the developing world.

21 Dec 2010

Reuters looks at cost-effectiveness of pursuing malaria vaccine, eradication

Reuters examines the effort to create an effective malaria vaccine and asks: "[I]s the vaccine - and the global health community's aim of completely eradicating a disease that kills a child every 45 seconds - really worth the money?"

15 Dec 2010

Bacterium used to tackle Dengue fever

This January Australian scientists will start deploying a strange bacterium called Wolbachia pipientis in an attempt to halt disease transmission by mosquitoes especially Dengue fever. They are targeting the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Dengue. Dengue is a viral disease that leads to high fever, severe muscle and joint pain and can also be fatal.

9 Dec 2010