A press release from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute raised a lot of concern. Based on a scientific paper published in Nature
Magnus Manske, Olivo Miotto, Susana Campino, Sarah Auburn, Jacob Almagro-Garcia, Gareth Maslen, Jack O’Brien, Abdoulaye Djimde, Analysis of Plasmodium falciparum diversity in natural infections by deep sequencing. Nature 487, 375–379, 19 July 2012doi:10.1038/nature11174
Studies from 2009 already asked the same question
Interviews from world-renowned researchers that guide WHO’s malaria policies:
Fred Binka: "Countries have done a great job decreasing malaria cases and deaths, but we’re not out of the woods yet."
Read the interview here : http://www.who.int/malaria/mpac/interview-fred-binka/en/
The World Health Organization confirmed on 17 November that the world’s first malaria vaccine will be rolled out in pilot projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Vaccinations will start in 2018.
The vaccine, known as RTS,S, acts against P. falciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite globally, and the most prevalent in Africa. Advanced clinical trials have shown RTS,S to provide partial protection against malaria in young children.
It is generally or it was believed that quinine is prophylactic. But several papers have questionned this believe and a large scale clinical trial from India in 1918 demonstrated that it is not the case and that large quantities of quinine have been swallowed by a large number of people without providing protection against the infection nor significantly reducing transmission
G Waugh Scott. Quinine prophylaxis in malaria. Brit Med Journal, 1918, May 11th.
WHO has just published its toolkit for Integrated Vector Management in sub-Saharan Africa. It is attached here for your perusal (and use!).
This toolkit for integrated vector management (IVM) is designed to help national and regional programme managers coordinate across sectors to design and run large IVM programmes. It is an extension of earlier guidance and teaching material provided by WHO: Handbook for integrated vector management , Monitoring and evaluation indicators for integrated vector management , Guidance on policy-making for integrated vector management and Core structure for training curricula on integrated vector management.
Co-chairs from the malERA Refresh Panels will discuss the findings of the updated malaria eradication research agenda (malERA) consultative process at the ASTMH annual meeting in Atlanta, USA. The symposium 'malERA Refresh: Updating the Malaria Eradication Scientific Agenda' is scheduled for Wednesday, 16 November, 1:45, Marriott Imperial B.
Several scientific papers have disappeared from internet.
For example the clinical trials with Artemisia annua in RD Congo from 2000 (attachment 1)
(M.S. Mueller , I.B. Karhagomba , H.M. Hirt , E. Wemakor. The potential of Artemisia annua L. as a locally produced remedy for malaria in the tropics: agricultural, chemical and clinical aspects. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 73 (2000) 487–493)
and clinical trials 2002 (attachment 2)
THE KELCH PROPELLER HYPOTHESIS
The WHO Global Malaria Programme is currently calling for applications for membership on the Technical Expert Group on Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation. A total of 13 experts will be selected for an initial term of up to three years.
The James Cook University, Australia has two vacancies:
Applications close: 13 November 2016
It was dicovered by a Yugoslav chemist called Milutin Stefanovic.
The below contribution was submitted to MalariaWorld by Dr. Gerry Killeen
Proanthocyanidins (condensed tannins) are oligomeric and polymeric products of the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway. They are present in the fruits, bark, leaves and seeds of many plants, wine and teas, and are increasingly recognized as having beneficial effects on human health. They have attracted little interest in malaria research because in vitro they show no significant antimalarial activity.
Submitted by Jean-Jacques Schul
Founder of IDAY-International.
As a reaction to recent articles Financial Times
Malar J. 2016; 15: 419.
Published online 2016 Aug 18. doi: 10.1186/s12936-016-1470-8
PMCID: PMC4991067
Towards malaria elimination in the MOSASWA (Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland) region
Authors:
Devanand Moonasar, Rajendra Maharaj, Simon Kunene, Baltazar Candrinho, Francisco Saute, Nyasatu Ntshalintshali, and Natashia Morris corresponding author.
SciDev.Net article - 21-09-2016
In a recent article about the spread of resistance to ACT in SE Asia, the authors recommend new drugs and better drug strategies:
'FEMS Microbiol Rev. 2016 Sep 8. pii: fuw037. [Epub ahead of print]
The clinical impact of artemisinin resistance in Southeast Asia and the potential for future spread.
Woodrow CJ1, White NJ2'.
Similarly, multiple resistance of Anopheline vectors is supposedly to be met with more careful selection of insecticides!
The article below was contributed by Nick Brown of A-Z Textile Mills Ltd.Allelopathy related to Artemisia plants has already been described 100 years ago (Bode, H. R. 1939. Über die Blattausscheidungen des Wermuts und ihre Wirkung auf andere Pflanzen. Planta 30:567-589). The work of H Bode was completed a few years later (GL Funke. Blumea - Biodiversity, Evolution and Biogeography of Plants, 1943 5, 281-293). Eighteen species of plants, most of which were chosen at random, were sown beside a hedge of Artemisia absinthium; they were severely injured and in one case even killed by the chemical excretions of the latter within a distance of ± 100 cm.
illumigene® Malaria, a novel, highly accurate test developed by Meridian Bioscience, has been awarded the coveted Journées Internationales de Biologie prize for Innovation in emergency treatment and point of care testing.
Dear partners,
I am delighted to welcome Dr Fred Binka as Coordinator of WHO’s Emergency Response to Artemisinin Resistance (ERAR) hub in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Most of us ignore that on Nov 3, 2015 a Convention was signed in Bali declaring the fight against the looming TB-Diabetes co-epidemic, one of the greatest global health challenges.
An estimated two billion people, or one third of all people worldwide, live with a tuberculosis (TB) infection, of whom 9.6 million people develop active TB disease annually. TB is the leading cause of death worldwide due to a single infectious pathogen, responsible for 1.5 million human deaths in 2014, and 95 percent of human TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
It has traditionnally been accepted that drying of Artemisia annua should take place in the shade because drying in the sun would destroy many useful molecules. But recent papers have questionned this belief and have studied the effect of ultraviolet radiation on the accumulation or decrease of medicinal compounds in plants (WJ Zhang et al., Fitoterapia, 2009, 80, 207-18). A study in Turkey showed that UV-C radiation had remarkable promoting effects on the accumulation of secondary metabolites in the calli of a grape cultivar (E Cetin, Biological Research, 2014, 47 :37).
The contribution below was provided by Geert Klein Breteler, who is involved in the development of MOMALA. Plasmodium is thriving on iron. One of the first mistakes of Western medicine in Africa was the iron supplementation to the Somali nomads in 1968. Blood analysis of these nomads had shown that according to European standards they were suffering from anemia (MJ Murray et al., Brit Med J. Oct 1978, 1113-1116). But iron administration was associated with a significant increase of the disease it was supposed to suppress and even to reactivation of pre-existing diseases. The conclusion of the authors was that iron deficiency eventually plays a part in suppressing certain infections
There is dangerous obstacle - we call it the Immunity Trap - in malaria prevention strategies which is most dangerous for countries which have relied on the ephemeral methods recommended by WHO and used by PMI, but which have not included permanent methods. In the 19 African countries in the US Presidential Malaria Initiative administered by the PMI for the last decade, of the 30 million who have lost their immunity, about half are also no longer protected by house spraying because of the high cost of new biocides.
In a pionneering study in 2010, the University of Louvain had studied the anti-inflammatory effect and modulation of cytochrome P450 activities by Artemisia annua tea infusions in human intestinal Caco-2 cells (Melillo de Magalhães P1, et al.,. Food Chem. 2012 Sep 15;134.:864-71). These assays were done on aqueous infusions (3.3/L) of Artemisia annua samples from 7 different origins.
