BBC: GOOD news for a change: potential BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF MALARIA

[Nothing Without Hope]

Malaria is one of the great killers and debilitators of the world, a terrible scourge in tropical areas like large sections of Africa and SE Asia:


A March 2005 BBC article reported on a study showing that the world-wide incidence of malaria may actually be DOUBLE even the high figure estimated by the World Health Organization (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4332921.stm): over HALF A BILLION Plasmodium falciparum malaria (the deadliest kind) cases in 2002. Two-thirds of these cases were in Africa, where they affected mostly children under five years old.

There have been outbreaks of malaria in the US from time to time as well, and it remains a potential threat here. Control with insecticides can be expensive, has serious impacts on the environment, and has progressively lost effectiveness as populations of the vector mosquitoes have developed resistance. New insecticides have continued to be developed, racing against the appearance and spread of resistant mosquitoes, but this is at best a stopgap measure and also represents an often impossible expense in poor countries.

Now there is a new source of hope: a newly discovered method of NATURAL, BIOLOGICAL control that is specific for the mosquitoes (rather than indiscriminately killing beneficial species as well), can be readily and cheaply produced without chemicals or expensive technology, and should NOT be subject to the problem of rapid development of resistance seen with chemical approaches.

People, I invite you to take a respite from all the horrors and fears and fury-inducing news we see every day and consider what may develop into a major source of hope and healing for millions:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4437634.stm
Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 01:30 GMT

Fungi 'new tool' against malaria

By Anya Lichtarowicz
Yaounde, Cameroon

(snip)

New studies show that a specific type of fungus native to East Africa can infect mosquitoes and reduce their lifespan by two-thirds - to just seven days.

Professor Willem Takken from Wageningn University in the Netherlands said the fungus also stops live mosquitoes from transmitting the malaria parasite to humans.

(snip)

They are so confident about their work that they believe the fungus technique could lead to small-scale industry in towns across Africa, where the spores could be grown on sorghum and rice flour.

(snip)

The scientists also believe that unlike with insecticides, where as many as 80% of mosquitoes are no longer killed by the compounds, the insects are unlikely to develop resistance to the fungus as it targets many different genes in the parasite.

This article is a report from a Forum on malaria that has just opened in Cameroon (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4434160.stm). I recommend reading the entire article and checking out the related links on the same page.

While it is obviously right to work to fight war, fascism, bigotry, corrosive poverty, and all the other evils that we face, we should NOT lose sight of the great illnesses of mankind - ALL mankind - which are making a comeback. Malaria is one of these. (There are several other major cripplers and killers - in the US, for example, we need to pay MUCH more attention to the resurgence of tuberculosis.) According to the study reported in the March 2005 BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4332921.stm), 2.2 BILLION people are at risk from malaria world-wide.

If the malaria-fighting fungus proves to be as effective as predicted by those who are testing it, this is a cause for joy and hope. Let's take a moment for that before turning back to our other ongoing battles.

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. I've cross-posted a brief headsup about this thread in the Science Forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x14941

but so far, the silence is deafening. Come on, people - this has signficance.

[Kagemusha]

2. You're sure?

If malaria's not killing people, what else might, like hunger?

Aside from that then I have to agree, it's certainly an advance that may have a large effect.

Edit: Just saying that fungi will not be the end of the story.

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. This is a signficant piece in the factors causing misery and death in

large areas of the world. Sickness also decreases effectiveness in farming or wage earning.

And we should never forget that malaria is also a past and likely future visitor in the US - and the chemicals are progressively losing effectiveness.

Finally, a successful campaign based on this biological control could have huge implications on global planning for disease control; many of the great killers/cripplers, especially (but not only) in the tropics, have invertebrate vectors.

[KT2000]

3. Glad to hear this

there has been an effort to reintroduce DDT to solve malaria. The subtext of that effort says that banning dangerous pesiticides is a bad thing.

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. The big chemical companies have a huge stake in pushing CHEMICALS

for control, whether they are the best way or not.

The implications of these findings are profound. If the control plan with the fungus does prove workable, it could give an impetus to finding other biological controls of human diseases. That would transform the tropical areas and also safeguard more temperate ones.

Malaria has broken out before in the US, for example in New Orleans. And plague appears endemic. Then there is Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme disease and more...all are potentially controllable by pathogens of the vector.

[moggie]

11. What do you mean by "reintroduce"?

There is no ban on the use of DDT for malaria prevention. It's banned from agricultural use, but not from disease prevention use. In many countries DDT isn't used for malaria prevention because their mosquitoes have evolved resistance to it. It's still used in some places, perfectly legally: for example, India does IRS (indoor residual spraying) using DDT.

Be careful with this subject: there's a lot of disinformation from the right about DDT use, since it allows them to paint environmentalists in a very bad light.

[Carolab]

6. (Bill) Gates Foundation Pledged $258.3 million in grants last month

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000700.html

Gates Foundation Pledges More Toward Malaria Research

By Justin Gillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 31, 2005; Page A15

NEW YORK -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said Sunday that it would sharply increase its investment in malaria research, awarding $258.3 million in grants to hasten ways of preventing and treating the disease.

Counting the new money, the Gates Foundation will soon be providing more than a third of the world's annual research budget for malaria, eclipsing the U.S. government as the leading funder of such work.

The grants, to be spent over five years, will bring worldwide malaria research to about $375 million a year That is a quarter of the sum that men in wealthy countries spend annually buying Viagra.

Malaria kills an estimated 1.2 million people a year, the large majority of them African children who have yet to reach their sixth birthday, and the toll has risen sharply over the past two decades.

{snip}

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. Thanks for this. I had not realized they were so focussed on malaria.

I wonder how they will respond to the news of the potential control by the pathogenic fungus. Seems to me they could greatly increase the speed and effectiveness of the effort to test and apply it.

There may be other important advances coming out the the ongoing Malaria Forum in Cameroon. I'll post on the BBC article on this meeting in another reply in this thread shortly - sort of a dual-purpose kick.

Wish more people would see this.

[Nothing Without Hope]

8. BBC article on the ongoing global malaria Forum in Cameroon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4434160.stm
Last Updated: Sunday, 13 November 2005, 23:45 GMT
Malaria forum opens in Cameroon
By Anya Lichtarowicz
Yaounde, Cameroon

(snip)

In terms of numbers, the conference is unprecedented.

Most of the African delegates have been sponsored by private industry, the EU, the UN and international scientific bodies like the Wellcome Trust.

Without this support they would not be here.

(snip)

The disease costs Africa more than $12bn in lost output each year, but it could be controlled for a fraction of that sum.

(snip)

[pop goes the weasel]

9. that should help with other diseases too!

West Nile, for instance, is a mosquito-born disease. What a relief if we can cut the skeeter population down.

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. Not sure if the fungus used attacks the West Nile vector mosquito

But it's a good point. If the current fungal isolate that attacks the malaria mosquito doesn't attack the West Nile mosquito -- and again, I don't know if this is the case and it needs to be checked -- then biologists might well be able to select new strains of fungus (maybe starting from the one that works on malarial mosquitoes) that WILL attack it.

And surely this is encouragement to look for natural pathogens for the deer tick that carries Lyme disease and other invertebrate disease vectors!

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. kick for the AM crowd n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. From the same malaria conference: NEW GLAXO VACCINE IS EFFECTIVE

It's far from 100%, but definitely better than nothing. If multiple approaches can be used to fight malaria, each one will be synergistic and ultimately produce a much better result than any one alone.

I do hope the fungus works, but it's very encouraging that this new vaccine from Glaxo protected a significant fraction of immunized African children from serious malaria (as opposed to a mild disease) for at least 18 months.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4440116.stm
Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 17:17 GMT

Malaria jab's long-term promise

(snip)

The latest candidate - Glaxo Smith Klein's RTS, S/AS02A - was given to 1,442 children in Mozambique in 2003.

The initial six month follow-up showed that the vaccine reduced the risk of clinical malaria by 30%, and the risk of serious disease by 58%.

The latest follow-up, details of which were published online by The Lancet, found that the protection offered by the jab did not wane after a further 12 months.

Dr Joe Cohen, the vice president of research and development for vaccines for emerging diseases at Glaxo Smith Klein, has been working on the prototype for 19 years.

(snip)

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. Another kick - I will keep eyes open for more developments at the

malaria conference and post here if I see them.

[Lisa]

18. I hope this works! Then we could get rid of DDT ...

At that international conference to come up with a treaty governing the use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (Stockholm Convention), there was a split between the equatorial nations which rely on DDT for anti-malaria programmes, and the circumpolar peoples (Inuit etc.) who are seeing increasing amounts of those chemicals ending up in their food supply, even though they don't use them.


Thanks so much for posting! I'm going to show this article to my env science students on Friday, in the hopes of cheering them up. (We've been looking at global warming impacts -- plus they just finished the organochlorines treaty simulation -- so they're kind of bummed out right now.)