As stated in previous blogs diabetes is on the rise everywhere. It is a debilitating and often fatal disease per se but it also increases the incidence of malaria because higher glucose contents in the blood are a fertile terrain for Plasmodium falciparum.
Diabetes burden is rising sharply in the African Region according to Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa. Reports of type 2 diabetes in children – previously rare – is a growing concern. In some countries, children and adolescents account for almost half of all newly diagnosed cases of type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is a leading cause of blindness, amputation, kidney failure and heart disease.
This quarterly report, produced by Vector Works, is meant to update the malaria community in general, and particularly those interested in vector control, on recently published research related to the improvement or development of new or alternative vector control tools. The report summarizes relevant new studies and highlights possible interpretations and implications, and it provides links to the original work. Aspects of indoor residual spraying are not included here as they are addressed in another newsletter (http://www.africairs.net). Read on to discover the exciting new contributions to the vector control field.
Rosine D. Chougouo NKuitchou1, Ernest Djoko1, Jonas Kouamouo1, Diane F. Domko1, Pierre Tane2, Denis Wouessidjewe1,3.
1 Faculty of Pharmacy, Université des Montagnes »P O Box 208 Bangangte, Cameroon 2 Laboratory of Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Dschang P O Box 67 Dschang Cameroon 3 UFR of Pharmacy, Department of Molecular Pharmacochemistry, University of Joseph Fourrier of Grenoble PO Box 53 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9.
The amino acid arginine is the only molecule in our food known to generate nitric oxide NO via NOS enzymes. It plays a key role in malaria therapy and cerebral malaria as described in previous blogs on www.malariaworld.org. NO derived from arginine is not only lethal for merozoites but also for gametocytes. NO is efficient against other diseases like leishmaniasis or filariasis (R O’Connor et al., Infection and Immunity, 2000, 68, 6101-6107).
The MESA Track database is now one year old. Thanks to your collaboration, the database has grown to 700 projects over the past year. MESA Track is an open and online platform for sharing information on current research projects relevant to malaria elimination.
More than 25 institutions from across the world have shared their full research portfolio in MESA Track, including institutions working on basic science, product development and operational research.
Our partners at the Al Quds University in Palestine have found that a zinc-arginine complex strongly inhibits beta-hematin crystallization, like quinine does, but that zinc or arginine alone are not effective. Arginine and zinc play an important role in the human physiology. The plants from the Artemisia family are rich in these constituents which play probably a key role against malaria and other diseases. They easily form a complex in a large range of reagent concentrations (E Bottari et al., Monatshefte Chemie 2014, 145, 1707-1714).
A blog posted on www.malariaworld.org on June 21. 2014 « Aspirin and artemisinin, beware » and another one on July 8 of the same year « Antiretrovirals and antimalarials : a deadly mix » had already highlighted the fact that drugs sold on a large scale in Africa showed strong antagonism with several antimalarial drugs. ARVs reduce the concentration of artemether , quinine, malarone in the blood. Aspirin has an effect on the endothelium and platelet adherence.
A paper published twenty years ago should have attracted more attention (NM Anstey et al., J Exp Med 1996, 184, 557-567) : the suppression of NO synthesis in cerebral malaria appears to enhance pathogenesis and increased NO synthesis protects against clinical disease. The work was based on in vivo results obtained in Tanzanian children. Already five years earlier the killing of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro by nitric oxide derivatives (NO, nitrite, nitrate) had been demonstrated (KA Rockett et al., Infection and Immunity, 1991, 59, 3280-3283).
This Consensus Statement on Housing and Malaria, released this month by the Vector Control Working Group of RBM, aims to review current evidence on the interaction between incremental housing improvements and malaria and to identify opportunities to contribute to global efforts for the control and elimination of malaria in line with the Global Technical Strategy (GTS) and Action and Investment to defeat Malaria (AIM). It is hoped that this docu‐ ment will encourage broader partnerships to realise the full potential of this promising complimentary approach and will help focus the research efforts required. Key actions for endemic countries and their partners are listed in the attached report. We are so close… Give us the last push.
We are not there yet. This is your last chance. Give us your vote. It takes a minute.
This is how it goes:
Save the Date for the 2017 Keystone Symposia - February 19-23, 2017, Kampala (Uganda) - conference on:
Malaria: From Innovation to Eradication
Organized in collaboration with MESA, this symposium provides a space for malaria eradication scientists to share new information and advance the scientific debate.
Plasmodium falciparum generates substantial amounts of ammonia as a metabolic by-product, but lacks detoxification mechanisms (S Kimoloi et al., Hypothesis and Theory, 2015, 9,article 234). It imports large amounts of glutamine from the host serum. Deamidation and deamination reactions generate two molecules of ammonia per glutamine molecule, particularly in the early trophozoite stages (T Zeuthen et al., Mol Microbiol 2006, 61, 1598-608).
The message below, from Dr. Pedro Alonso, the Director of WHO's Global Malaria Programme was circulated today, 24 October 2015.
Last month there was great news for the malaria world: A detailed analysis of the impact of insecticide-treated bednets (LLINs), ACTs, and indoor residual spraying (IRS), showed that some 6.2 million deaths and 700 million cases were averted between 2000-2015, mostly since 2005. Add up the contribution of the vector control components, and it shows that 78% of all the gains originated from just these two tools: LLINs and IRS. Is it safe to draw the conclusion from this that vector control is and shall remain the integral and critical component that will lead us to a world without malaria by 2040? I think the answer to that is 'yes, very much so'.
The 64th annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) is taking place 25 – 29 October 2015 in Philadelphia, USA.
Partners from across the malaria community will be sharing updates of their work.
A review paper published by Frank van der Kooy in 2013 (Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 150, 1-13) revived our interest in the question why the solubility of artemisinin is higher in Artemisia annua infusions than for the pure substance in distilled water.
We need ways to improve the use of bednets because they are so hot to sleep under, and a group in Ghana is working on this. Peter Nardini and some friends from the US Peace Corps are testing a way to sleep comfortably under a bednet by installing small solar-powred fans inside the nets, along with lights and cell-phone battery chargers. Their website is 'Green World Health Net', and they are doing exciting things with these ideas, in a village on the coast of Ghana. You can contact them for info at;
Parasites are endowed with powerful and host-independant mechanisms which de novo synthesize or regenerate reduced glutathione (GSH) and protect the parasites from oxidative damage. GSH can penetrate from the extracellular space into the host cytosol but the parasite membrane is impermeable to peptides (H Atamna et al., Eur J Biochem 1997, 15, 670-9).. Glutathione is one of the most powerful anti-oxidants. It is a tripeptide formed by the amino acids glycine, cysteine and glutamic acid. It inhibits the action of arginine which produces NO and expels it from the food vacuole.
It is with profound sadness that we took notice today of the untimely death of Dr. Alan Magill, who headed the malaria programme at the Gates Foundation in Seattle. Below we copy the press release from the Gates Foundation.
I met Alan for the first time in Durban, South Africa, during the MIM meeting in 2013. This was not long after he had taken up his new position at the Gates Foundation. This was the man that everyone out of the 1500+ participants would like to talk to, and it was a great privilege that he took some time to sit down and chat with me. It struck me immediately how pleasant Alan was to interact with. Down-to-earth, direct, and above all with passion did he speak of his mission to free the world of malaria. And I vivdly remember his following words: 'Being with the Foundation now gives me the real opportunity to make a difference in this world'.
The second time we met was when I visited the Foundation in January this year. As ever, Alan was pleasant and at the same time razor sharp. He needed two words to understand your full story. Over lunch his passion got hold of him when he stood up and expressed his frustration that we were all going too slow - that we needed to get new technology to the field quicker. Every live mattered, and waiting would only lead to unnecessary waste of lives. So true.
The world has lost a great malariologist. It is now upon us to follow in his footsteps and end malaria.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
On behalf of the MESA Alliance, we wanted to share our heartfelt condolences for the loss of Alan Magill.
Alan held a deep-rooted belief that humankind should and could defeat malaria. He made an extraordinary commitment towards realising this goal.
VectorWorks is pleased to announce the release of a new report, Landscape of New Vector Control Products written by Michael MacDonald. The report covers the spectrum of new vector control products, highlighting descriptions of how each of the tools work; general timelines for their implementation; and limitations of each approach. While these tools are unlikely to be as widely scalable as IRS and ITNs, they are promising components of an Integrated Vector Management strategy.
The report is attached below.
Dr. Silas Majambere is a medical entomologist who took up the position od senior scientist with the Innovative Vector Control Consortium recently. MalariaWorld asked Silas about his past work and future ambitions in the field of malaria elimination.What are the benefits of eradicating malaria, compared to suppressing it?
Eradication is a distant goal, perhaps one not attainable in our lifetime – perhaps never. Even its definition is somewhat vague, as there are so many forms of malaria. However suppression of malaria transmission is real and immediately attainable, something we are actually doing right now, in various degrees.
This month’s report by WHO/UNICEF on ‘Achieving the Malaria MDG Target’ indicated that over 50% of Congolese children sleep under bednets. However these overly optimistic assertions are contradicted by a careful malaria survey conducted in 2007 in 8,000 households in the Congo, which indicated a blood-slide positivity of 33.5% and only 7% of children sleeping under bednets (Molecular malaria epidemiology…… by Taylor et al DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016420.
200 years ago, in 1830 the anthelmintic properties of santonin were discovered , simultaneously by Dr Kahler in Düsseldorf and Dr Alms in Mecklenburg in a plant from Turkestan, Artemisia cina. Its presence, although at lower concentrations, was later found in Artemisia maritima, Artemisia campesris, Artemisia gallica, Artemisia absinthium, Artemisia sieberi. (Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft , 1867, Vol 6, 875-1670). Stanislao Cannizzaro is known widely for his , "Sunto di un corso di filosofia chimica", on santonin which he presented at the Karlsruhe Congress of 1860.
I fully support the conclusions of Solomon Kibret and colleagues about the health impact of dams in the tropics, especially regarding diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and aquatic snails.
REF just published in Malaria Journal - Malar J. 2015; 14: 339. Published online 2015 Sep 4. doi: 10.1186/s12936-015-0873-2 PMCID: PMC4560078
The title is : Malaria impact of large dams in sub-Saharan Africa: maps, estimates and predictions
by Solomon Kibret,corresponding author and Jonathan Lautze, Matthew McCartney, G. Glenn Wilson, and Luxon Nhamo.
