by Malaria.com
Mosquitoes can rapidly develop resistance to bed nets treated with insecticide, a study from Senegal says.In recent years the nets have become a leading method of preventing malaria, especially in Africa.In the Lancet Infectious Diseases, the researchers also suggest the nets reduced the immunity of older children and adults to malaria infection.
But other experts say the study was too small to draw conclusions about the long-term effectiveness of nets.
Read more, via BBC News.
by Malaria.com
Prescribing malaria medication to patients who don’t need it wastes precious resources in a country already dealing with drug shortages. It leaves patients untreated for the real cause of their sickness. And it can lead to drug resistance, making malaria parasites harder to eliminate when people really do contract the disease.
So why do health workers ignore negative test results?
[Read more…]
by Malaria.com
The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) today announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on support of a collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) for the development of a new vaccine against malaria. The collaboration is for the development of a novel malaria vaccine, which combines WRAIR’s malaria antigen CelTOS with IDRI’s potent GLA-SE adjuvant.
Preclinical studies to date have shown that the combination of CelTOS and GLA-SE in a vaccine candidate produces potent immune responses in small animals, resulting in a protective immune response during the infectious mosquito-stage of malaria parasites.
Because of the conserved nature of the CelTOS antigen, immunized mice are protected against other distantly related malaria strains as well. USAID provided funds for WRAIR’s preclinical studies of this antigen, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded IDRI’s CelTOS-specific adjuvant development activities. A phase I clinical trial with human malaria challenge is being funded by USAID, the WRAIR, and the Gates Foundation grant awarded to IDRI.
Malaria is a devastating parasitic disease transmitted through the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. The WHO estimates that more than two billion people live in malarious areas of the world in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. The emergence and spread of drug resistance, production and availability of counterfeit medications, and mosquito resistance to insecticides make the development of a safe, effective, and affordable malaria vaccine critical as an adjunct to other preventive measures. Because CelTOS is essential for establishing parasite infections in both the human and mosquito hosts, IDRI, USAID, and WRAIR are hopeful that the development of the CelTOS – GLA-SE malaria vaccine will provide a significant new approach to a human malaria vaccine, targeting prevention of both human disease and transmission of the parasite back to the mosquito.
“The collaboration with WRAIR illustrates again the broad utility of GLA-SE as a vaccine adjuvant,” Dr. Steven G. Reed, IDRI’s Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer, stated. “We are very excited to be moving this important project ahead and particularly pleased with the validating interest from USAID.”
“The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is pleased that both IDRI and USAID have partnered with us in helping support the development of malaria vaccines to prevent infection in children worldwide and to protect our men and women serving in uniform in areas of the world where malaria is still a major infectious disease,” said COL Christian Ockenhouse, Director of WRAIRs’ Malaria Vaccine Development Program.
Dr. Carter Diggs, Senior Technical Advisor for the USAID Malaria Vaccine Development Program added that, “In spite of dramatic progress in malaria control, the disease is still a major killer of children in the developing world. USAID is very pleased with this collaboration, which combines exploration of the vaccine potential of an untested, but promising malaria antigen with this leading edge adjuvant system.”
Source: PRNewswire
by Malaria.com
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that twelve grantees have advanced to the next level of Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE), an initiative that enables researchers worldwide to test unorthodox ideas that address persistent health and development challenges. The grantees will receive additional funding to continue Phase II of their research over a two-year period.
“Finding solutions to persistent global health problems is a difficult, lengthy and expensive process. GCE was designed to tap the innovators of the world by providing resources needed to explore bold ideas that are typically too risky to attract funding through other mechanisms,” said Chris Wilson, director of Global Health Discovery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re excited to enable further development of novel approaches that can prevent or lessen the burden of diseases that kill or disable millions of the world’s most vulnerable.”
Among projects receiving Phase II funding, Carmenza Spadafora of Panama’s IASI and Jose Stoute of Pennsylvania State University investigate whether malaria can be treated by microwave irradiation.
Grantees who receive Phase II funding will receive up to one million dollars of additional funding over a two-year period.
Fast Company reports: “Malaria drugs are expensive, and the disease is becoming resistant. But nothing can resist microwaves. A new advance might simply explode the parasite inside people’s bodies with a low dose of focused rays. Treatments for malaria, however, have never been a high priority for pharmaceutical companies, and multi-drug resistant malaria is becoming prevalent in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, while even the most effective drug combinations are losing their punch. Researchers Carmenza Spadafora and Jose Stoute have now hit upon one treatment that no parasite has ever developed an immunity against, and may never be able to survive: microwaves.”
Read more, via Fast Company.
Sources: Fast Company, Gates Foundation
by Malaria.com
Focusing on the millions of people at risk from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world, Lifelens is a project that has created a smartphone app to diagnose the insidious, mosquito-borne disease. The most prevalent diagnostic tool is the rapid diagnostic test RDT, which is known to be associated with a 60 percent incidence rate of false positive results. That, in turn, results in the treatment of many people who don’t actually have Malaria, driving up the costs of anti-Malaria treatment significantly. The Lifelens project aims to make the process both cheaper and more accurate by analyzing blood digitally instead. [Read more…]
by Malaria.com
In global public health, disease-fighting tools that are cheap, available and sustainable are the Holy Grail. It might be hard to top the one being tested in Tanzania as a way to prevent malaria: smelly socks.
Experiments in three villages where people get about 350 bites a year from malaria-infected mosquitoes are using dirty socks to lure the insects into traps, where they become contaminated with poisons and ultimately die. [Read more…]
by Malaria.com
When a person living in a malarial area gets a fever, health workers need to know the cause to make absolutely sure they give the right treatment. For many years in sub-Saharan Africa primary health workers have often assumed a fever is caused by malaria, and given antimalarial drugs. This approach means sometimes people receive the wrong treatment for their illness. It also wastes resources and, over time, can promote resistance to available drugs.
A new Cochrane Systematic Review examines the accuracy of Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs), which are designed to detect malaria based on the presence of parasite antigens, using a quick and easy to use format. The World Health Organization (WHO), now strongly recommends health staff confirm a malaria diagnosis prior to treatment with artemisinin combination therapies (ACT’s), but in many settings, this demands a major shift in practice and is not as easy as it may seem to adopt.
Up until recently, confirming a diagnosis of malaria infection was done by detecting parasites in a blood sample using a microscope. This requires highly trained staff, reagents and equipment, all of which are in short supply in many areas where malaria is common. RDTs use carefully manufactured molecules (antibodies) that when in contact with an infected patient’s blood can bind with the malaria parasites and trigger a colour change on a test strip that can be easily seen with the naked eye. While these tests are technically difficult to manufacture, once built they are relatively simple to perform, require no specialised equipment and provide accurate results in many geographical settings.
“After reviewing available data in 74 different studies, we can say that the these antigen-detecting tests will identify at least 19 out of 20 cases, a success rate that would be very useful in clinical practice,” says Katharine Abba, who carried out this review at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.
“The use of Rapid Diagnostic Tests is another step towards reaching the goal of universal accuracy in the diagnosis of malaria and key to ensuring that the correct treatment is given to patients. Resources can be saved with the rational use of anti-malarial drugs and it will also reduce the pressure on drug resistance.”
There are various different RDTs designed to detect the malaria parasite. “All the tests performed reasonably well, but we do need more research to address issues such as how easy these tests are to use and what barriers there may be to adopting them,” says Abba.
Malaria is caused by the parasitic protozoan Plasmodium. It causes high fevers, headaches and aches and pains elsewhere in the body. If not treated early, malaria quickly evolves from an uncomplicated state into a severe disease where the brain is involved and the risk of death or brain damage is high. Malaria kills over 700,000 people a year worldwide, mostly children in Africa. In addition there are cases in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Europe.
Source: Wiley
by Malaria.com
Researchers have found that an inexpensive and widely-available drug (Ivermectin) used to treat river blindness in Africa, round worm and head lice in American school children is also effective in reducing malaria transmission, especially during seasonal epidemics of this worldwide scourge.
“Can you kill a mosquito when it’s biting you [with] something that’s in your blood,” asked Brian Foy.
Malaria researcher Brian Foy of Colorado State University found out that yes, you can. He is working on a malaria control program and says there are many benefits to killing mosquitos as they bite their hosts.
Foy says that this not only is a clever way of getting a toxin directly to the malaria-causing parasite living in mosquitos, but it also saves the environment from harmful insecticides.
In a field study done on malaria transmission in Senegalese villages, Foy and his colleagues found that a drug already widely used for treating the two most common parasitic diseases in Africa – river blindness and elephantiasis – also has insecticidal properties.
“We are repurposing a really cheap and important drug for worm control potentially to control malaria,” he said.
The study shows that after single doses of the drug Ivermectin were administered to residents of several Senegalese villages, there was a 79 percent reduction in mosquitoes found to be carrying the malaria parasite. In villages where the drug was not given, the malarial mosquitoes increased by 246 percent.
Researchers found that the drug circulating in people’s blood killed the mosquitoes. Ivermectin is given once every year in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa to fight common infections. But researchers say that if the drug is given more often, it can provide other benefits.
“If you give it more often, [as] we are proposing for malaria transmission control, it will start to have an effect against the soil-transmitted illness that people have in their guts – things like whip worm, round worm and maybe even hookworms, which cause a lot of hidden illnesses in people,” said Foy.
Peter Hotez, president of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, calls Foy’s study groundbreaking. He says it proves what many public health researchers have long suspected – that drugs used to combat neglected tropical diseases have important collateral health benefits.
“It opens up a new pathway for discovering an additional class of drugs specifically for this purpose – maybe a drug that can circulate in the body longer and then be better targeted for malaria specifically,” said Hotez.
Malaria kills almost 800,000 people around the world each year. Experts say Ivermectin would be a welcome addition to the anti-malaria arsenal of bed nets, pesticides, drugs and, perhaps one day soon, a vaccine. Public health experts say all these weapons will be needed in the years ahead to eradicate malaria permanently.
More information about Ivermectin.
Source: VOA
by Malaria.com
The University of Glasgow has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to further help in the diagnosis of malaria. The $100,000 award will go towards developing a device which uses mobile-phone derived technology that can detect and separate red blood cells infected with malaria parasites.
It is hoped that if successful, devices based on the technology could be mass produced for rapid and accurate malaria diagnosis. [Read more…]
by Malaria.com
Lutheran World Relief (LWR), The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the United Nations Foundation announced on Monday an unprecedented partnership to mobilize Lutherans in the United States in the fight against malaria in Africa. [Read more…]