Video courtesy of VOA News
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced a new $63 billion Global Health Initiative with an emphasis on maternal and child health, family planning and programs to fight infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute Dr. Peter Hotez reacts to announcement.
Summarized by Franciscka Lucien
In an editorial in the August edition of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute Dr. Peter Hotez calls for emerging market economies to join the US, UK, and Japan as partners in neglected tropical disease (NTD) control efforts. Entitled “Neglected Tropical Disease Control in the ‘Post-American World,’” Dr. Hotez states that the US and UK have already started commitments of up to US$100 million annually for NTD control — with plans to possibly double this amount by 2011 — while Japan has provided additional funding for global parasite control. Still, successful control of NTDs requires new financial support to complement current control and elimination efforts by the US, UK, and Japan. Emerging market economies must now join in the control efforts and share this commitment.
NTDs disable and debilitate 1.4 billion people worldwide living on $1.25 a day who are often the poorest of the poor. These parasitic, viral, and bacterial infections are devastating. They disproportionately impact the emerging world and exacerbate poverty by impairing child development, maternal health, and productivity.
» Read more: Issuing a Call for Action: Emerging Nations and NTD Control
By: Alanna Shaikh
Last week I mentioned briefly that poverty is a major factor in the spread of NTDs. It’s not the only non-medical factor that contributes to the damage done by NTDs. One thing that’s rarely mentioned in relation to NTDS – but matters a lot – is governance. Rule of law, effective government, and transparency are important to the fight against NTDs. You don’t get those from a mass drug administration, unfortunately.
Effective government starts with health system strength – having enough trained personnel, sufficient infrastructure, good data, and enough money to provide health care and support health. But the effective government needed to support health programs goes beyond the health sector. You need to be able to collect taxes or manage donor money to fund all services, including health. And you need a Ministry of Finance capable of moving the money in ways that work.
MeND2010 is a workshop convened in the spirit of both optimism and urgency: to showcase the array of resources (funding, organizational and scientific) available for Neglected Diseases research and to develop new resources for the ND research community to ratchet up the pace and scope of discovery. All sectors will participate: academic scientists; clinicians and other front-line health workers; funders and funding experts; scientists and managers of biopharmaceutical companies, large and small; not-for-profit product development partnerships; students and other trainees who will become the next generation of leading researchers, developers and advocates.
The workshop will focus on defined problems and develop key resources for the biomedical research community committed to developing health technologies that can help to break the cycle of poverty for the billions living, for now, at the margins of global society.
Please visit the MeND2010 website to register, or click here to be directed to the registration page. A webcast is available for those who can not make it out to Boston; more information can be found on the registration page. Registration closes Wednesday, September 8, 2010.
A new list of reads for your reading pleasure! Today we’re reading about a successful experimental treatment for victims of trachoma, the current state of global immunization, the spread of trachoma within the Northern Bahr el Ghazal region of Sudan, and Lymphatic filariasis in India.
Experimental vision cure proves successful, Thomas H. Maugh, Los Angeles Times
Global immunizations hit record but miss millions, David Morgan, Reuters
Mystery eye disease spreads across Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Ngor Arol Garang, Sudan Tribune
Lymphatic filariasis in India: Epidemiology and control measures, S Sabesan, P Vanamail, KHK Raju, P Jambulingam, Journal of Postgraduate Medicine
By: Alanna Shaikh
It was recently pointed out to me that I’ve never covered leishmaniasis in my posts. I’d hate to make an NTD extra-neglected, so I’ll look at it today. As a quick refresher, you may recall that I named it “giant sores and organ damage disease” in my very first post on this blog. It’s also known as kala-azar.
For a somewhat more formal description of leishmaniasis, we can turn to the World Health Organization (WHO). They’re just issued an information page on the disease. (Which, by the way, is good news. It will help raise the profile of this NTD and all the others as well.) The WHO would like you to know that:
Leishmaniasis is caused by protozoan parasites belonging to the genus Leishmania. The parasites are transmitted by the bite of a tiny – only 2–3 mm long – insect vector, the phlebotomine sandfly.
Photo Credit: CDC
A great new list of reads to get you through the week! Today we’re reading about a Lancet seminar on lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, a great overview of drugs available to treat NTDs, Merck’s provision of funds to fight against HIV/AIDS in Botswana, and the use of roundworm in a new groundbreaking study. Enjoy!
Lancet seminar: lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, NeLM news service
Medications to Treat Human Worms, Amy O’Connell, Live Strong
Merck Provides New Funding to Fight HIV/AIDS in Botswana, PharmaLive
Study of cell division sheds light on special mechanism in egg cells, Lab Spaces
Photo courtesy of WHO
A Google image search of “smallpox” will display photos which, to be frank, are startling and hard to look at. What’s even more shocking than the images themselves is the fact that smallpox remains the only disease to have been eradicated* from humanity. 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication officially reporting the elimination of smallpox disease—one of the greatest triumphs in medicine and public health.
To commemorate this truly admirable feat, hundreds of global health practitioners, scientists and advocates have gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a symposium that is aimed at sharing “lessons, legacies, and innovations” thirty years post the eradication of smallpox.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute will be live streaming the symposium here, and in addition to presentations by our President, Dr. Peter Hotez, and Executive Vice-President Dr. Ciro de Quadros, who served as the World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Epidemiologist for the Smallpox Eradication Program in Ethiopia from 1970 to 1976, the symposium will feature presentations by Dr. DA Henderson, Former Chief of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Program; Dr. Mirta Roses, Director of the Pan American Health Organization; Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University; and Dr. Tadataka Yamada, President of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.
Another installment from our Worm of the Week series, courtesy of student campaigners from Boston University! Today we feature:
Lymphatic Filariasis
A physically and socially debilitating disease, lymphatic filariasis affects over 120 million people in 80 different countries. The thread-like parasitic filarial worms, Wuchereria bancrofti (causing most infections worldwide), and Brugia malayi and Brugia timori (primarily in Asia) lodge in the human lymphatic system. There, adult worms mate and produce millions of microscopic microfilariae that circulate in the person’s blood. Infection spreads by mosquito bites containing larval worms that travel to lymph and grow into adults which takes about six months. Adult worms can live 5 to 7 years.
Symptoms
Sometimes called elephantiasis due to the engorgement and thickening of skin, lymphatic filariasis is characterized by lymphedema, or fluid collection due to improper functioning of the lymph system resulting in swelling. Most infected individuals are asymptomatic and will never develop symptoms. In the severest cases, fluid accumulates in the legs, arms, breasts, and genitalia. Infected persons are at increased risk for bacterial infections in the skin and lymph system.
Diagnosis
Microscopic identification of microfilariae in blood smear. Blood collection should be done at night.
Treatment
Diethylcarbamazine (DEC) kills microfilaria and some of the adult worms; Ivermectin kills microfilaria.
Prevention and Control
The best way to avoid lymphatic filariasis is to avoid mosquito bites (sleep under mosquito net, use repellent, wear long sleeves and trousers). In 1997, the World Health Assembly called for the global elimination of lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem. The strategy for elimination is based on treating everyone eligible to take the medicine living in an affected community with a dose of two drugs: albendazole is used in conjunction with ivermectin (sub-Saharan Africa) and with DEC (elsewhere in world).
Sources: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/lymphaticfilariasis/index.htm
http://www.cartercenter.org/health/lf/index.html
Just 50 cents campaign: http://www.globalnetwork.org/just50cents
Happy Monday readers!
We have some exciting news to share with you! The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases was given the exciting opportunity to showcase a short video on the CBS Super Screen in bustling New York City’s Times Square. The video will run for 15 seconds of every hour, 18 hours a day for 60 days —receiving in excess of 1.5 million viewers daily!
Take a look at the video below (also embedded in the sidebar on the right) and join our Global Network Ambassador Alyssa Milano by texting “LIFE” to 30644 to learn more on how you can help End the Neglect.
P.S. If you happen to be in New York, wandering through Times Square (particularly on 42nd St. between 7th and 8th Ave) and see our video on the CBS Super Screen , take a photo, send it in and we’ll post it!
© 2010 End the Neglect · Proudly powered by WordPress & Green Park 2 by Cordobo.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS 3
