Television, Pregnancy, Cigarettes and Alcohol

Doctors in Britain have established that just like smoking and alcohol, too much television can mean dreadful health consequences.

Watching more than 2 hours of television a day, according to British doctors, increases the risk of premature cardiovascular diseases and early death.

The doctors refer to this group of people as TV “addicts; that is anyone who spends more than 4 hours a day in front of the screen.

The situation is worsened by the fact that a large percentage of the population already spends several hours a day at work in front of a computer.

The simple suggestion is cut down your TV time. Go for a work with your family or loved ones. Still have excess at your disposal? Write an article for publication on TalkAfrique.

Pregnancy, Cigarettes and Alcohol

Pregnancy is a risky time when the slightest deviation from a healthy lifestyle can cause a lot of damage to the unborn child’s future.

Drinking alcohol when you’re pregnant can lead to foetal alcohol syndrome. And smoking too poses a threat to the unborn child.

Women who smoke are in fact twice as likely to have an extra-uterine pregnancy and three times as likely to suffer a miscarriage.

Causing facial abnormalities, delayed growth, malformations of the cranium and the brain, foetal alcohol syndrome can result in serious damage to the nervous system which in turn leads to delayed intellectual development.

The risk of premature birth is also greatly increased if a pregnant woman drinks alcohol.

Smoking too is harmful to the unborn child. The placenta transmits almost everything the mother consumes to the foetus and the mother’s blood will be loaded with carbon monoxide and nicotine.

Carbon monoxide is particularly toxic and slows down foetal development. Nicotine also acts as an intoxicant on the unborn child who, once born, is likely to suffer from withdrawal syndrome.

February 4, 2011February 4, 2011

Scientists Have Identified a New Type of Mosquito

Jonathan Amos

Scientists have identified a new type of mosquito. It is a subgroup of Anopheles gambiae, the insect species responsible for most of the malaria transmission in Africa.

Researchers tell Science magazine that this new mosquito appears to be very susceptible to the parasite that causes the disease – which raises concern.

The type may have evaded classification until now because it rests away from human dwellings where most scientific collections tend to be made.

Dr Michelle Riehle, from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, and colleagues made their discovery in Burkina Faso, where they gathered mosquitoes from ponds and puddles near villages over a period of four years.

When they examined these insects in the lab, they found many to be genetically distinct from any A. gambiae insects previously recorded.

The team grew generations of the unique subtype in the lab to assess their susceptibility to the malaria parasite and this revealed them to be especially vulnerable, more so than indoor-resting insect types.

But Pasteur team-member Dr Ken Vernick cautioned that these mosquitoes’ significance for malaria transmission had yet to be established.

“We are in a zone where we need to do some footwork in the field to identify a means to capture the wild adults of the outdoor-resting sub-group,” he told BBC News.

“Then we can test them and measure their level of infection with malaria, and then we can put a number on how much – if any – of the actual malaria transmission this outdoor-resting subgroup is responsible for.”

The researchers report that the new subgroup could be quite a recent development in mosquito evolution and urge further investigation to understand better the consequences for malaria control.

They also emphasise the need for more diverse collection strategies. The subtype is likely to have been missed, they say, because of the widespread practice of collecting mosquitoes for study inside houses. In one sense this has made sense – after biting, mosquitoes need to rest up and if they do this inside dwellings, the confined area will make them an easier target for trapping. However, the method is also likely to introduce a bias into the populations under study.

Commenting on the study, Dr Gareth Lycett, a malaria researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, said it was an interesting advance that might have important implications for tackling malaria.

“To control malaria in an area you need to know what mosquitoes are passing on the disease in that district, and to do that you need sampling methods that record all significant disease vectors,” he told BBC News.

“You need to determine what they feed on, when and where, and whether they are infectious. And where non-house-resting mosquitoes are contributing to disease transmission, devise effective control methods that will complement bed-net usage and house spraying.

“A recent 12m-euro multinational project (AvecNET), funded by the European Union, and led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has the specific aims of doing just this.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than 200 million cases of malaria worldwide each year, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, most of them in Africa.

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites. The parasites are spread to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.

Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

January 24, 2011

Chemistry Is Booming in Africa, But Funding is Scarce

Johannesburg (South Africa) – African chemistry is booming, according to scientists who gathered this week at a conference in Johannesburg from across the continent to kick off the International Year of Chemistry 2011 (IYC2011).

The past decade has seen growth in African chemistry, fuelled in particular by the classification and investigation of natural products, according to James Darkwa, who chaired the Chemistry — the Key to Africa’s Future conference (16–21 January).

But, despite the recent boom in African chemistry with several continental and regional networks springing up, sustainable funding for research and maintenance of laboratory equipment remains a big challenge, SciDev.Net heard on the sidelines of the conference.

Alejandra Palermo, international projects manager at the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), told SciDev.Net that a particular challenge is maintaining and accessing laboratory equipment, as there is a lack of engineers, spare parts and chemicals.

And Darkwa, a chemistry professor at the University of Johannesburg told SciDev.Net that sustainable funding for chemists remains a challenge.

However, Darkwa said that the new chemistry networks could now help bring these issues to the attention of African policymakers and help chemists collaborate on finding solutions.

Members of one such network, the Pan Africa Chemistry Network (PACN), told SciDev.Net there were several success stories since its launch in 2007.

Jean Claude Ndom from the University of Douala, Cameroon, was sponsored by PACN and the São Paulo Research Foundation for a two-month research fellowship in the Brazilian capital, which resulted in several long-standing collaborations.

“PACN is not only bringing together African chemists but also chemists around the world,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chemical Society of Nigeria has received 2,000 books through PACN, said Yilkur Lohdip, the society’s external relations officer, and travel grants and networking meetings have been popular.

PACN has also identified centres of excellence to act as regional training and research hubs.

“This is the right way to get African chemists on the world map of chemistry,” said Anthony Gachanja, professor of chemistry at one of the excellence centres — Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya.

Another network, the Botswana-based Southern and Eastern Africa Network of Analytical Chemists, has helped chemists communicate their research findings and identify colleagues on the continent, according to Darkwa.

“The network allows people who don’t have resources to go to labs that are better equipped,” he said.

The conference took place alongside the 40th South African Chemical Institute convention and the third meeting of the Federation of African Societies of Chemistry, where chemists examined sustainable use of chemistry for development and better research links on the continent.

It was also the first in a series of worldwide events that mark IYC2011 — an initiative campaigned for mainly by Ethiopian chemists — which will be formally launched at UNESCO headquarters in Paris next week (27–28 January).

January 13, 2011January 16, 2011

Glaxo Malaria Vaccine Cuts Risk by Half

for at Least 15 Months, Study Says

By Simeon Bennett – Jan 13, 2011

GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s experimental malaria vaccine, already shown to cut the risk of children contracting the disease by half after 8 months, was equally effective after 15, a study showed.

Youngsters in Africa who got the shot, called Mosquirix, were 46 percent less likely to contract malaria than those who received a rabies vaccine, according to the study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The findings suggest the London-based drugmaker may have succeeded where others have failed in developing the world’s first effective shot against the deadliest mosquito-borne disease. Glaxo expects to have the results of final-stage trials by late this year or early next, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty said in October.

“We’ve never had a malaria vaccine get this far in its development and continue to show such promise,” Robert Newman, director of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Programme, said in a telephone interview today. “It’s promising and encouraging.”

Malaria infected about 225 million people and killed about 781,000 in 2009, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa, the Geneva-based WHO said in December. That makes it the world’s third-deadliest infectious disease behind AIDS and tuberculosis.

Researchers including Philip Bejon, from the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kilifi, Kenya, tested the vaccine on more than 800 children between ages 5 and 17 months in Tanzania and Kenya. The children either received a rabies vaccine or Mosquirix with a so-called adjuvant designed to boost the effect.

New Analysis

An initial analysis, published in December 2008, showed the vaccine cut the number of children infected with malaria by 53 percent after 8 months. The new analysis found “no evidence of waning efficacy,” Bejon and colleagues wrote.

The most common adverse events were pneumonia, fits with fevers and stomach inflammation, with fewer events reported among children who received the malaria vaccine compared with those who got the rabies shot. The researchers are now studying the vaccine in 15,000 infants in seven countries.

Glaxo expects the cost of the vaccine, if successful, to be “the lowest practical cost sustainable over time,” Witty told reporters on a conference call in October. The drugmaker will “price it at the cost of manufacturing, with only a very small return, around 5 percent,” which Witty has pledged to deploy in research for more treatments of neglected tropical diseases.

The study was funded by Glaxo and the Bethesda, Maryland- based PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is in turn sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s richest charity.

Assuming results of the next trial are positive, Glaxo plans to seek regulatory approval for the shot in Europe, Stephen Rea, a spokesman, said in a telephone interview today. The WHO wants to wait for data on the effectiveness of the vaccine after 30 months, due in 2014, before it makes a policy recommendation on the vaccine, Newman said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net

December 16, 2010January 8, 2011

Text messaging to combact malaria

Mobile phones could soon be helping re-assure Nigerians and Ghanaians they are getting genuine medicine.

A pilot scheme in the two nations has begun putting unique scratch codes on more than 500,000 medicine bottles and packets of pills.

When the code is texted to a free phone number, a return message will reveal that a drug is genuine.

The scheme hopes to boost efforts to tackle diseases such as malaria and combat the rise in fake medicines.

Security alert

About 700,000 people suffering from malaria and tuberculosis die every year around the world because of fake drugs, suggest statistics from think tank International Policy Network

Globally, about 10-15% of all drugs are believed to be fake but in some parts of Africa this rises to 50%. The problem is made more acute in Africa because some fake medicines being offered to the sick are watered down versions of the real thing and dent the efficacy of the full strength drug.

“Some genuine medicines have lost their potency because of the counterfeiting,” said Gabriele Zedlmayer, a spokeswoman for HP which is a partner in the labelling scheme.

Fake pills are a big problem in Africa where diseases such as malaria are endemic

This can be a particular problem with malaria as the disease is so widespread in sub-saharan Africa where it is the leading cause of death.

The scheme is being backed by governments and drug companies who have pledged to publicise how it works in pharmacies, surgeries, hospitals and community centres.

Painkillers, anti-malaria drugs and amoebicides from pharmaceutical firms May & Baker in Nigeria and Kama in Ghana will be the first to get the scratch-off labels.

Such a scheme was very important in Africa where about 80% of medicines are generic, said Bright Simons, founder of mPedigree which developed some of the technology to underpin the pilot.

By using the codes, people would get to know pharmacies, hospitals and other outlets they can trust, he said.

Mobiles were the best way for people in Nigeria and Ghana to find out about their medicines because they were so ubiquitous said Mr Simon, adding that even those who do not own a handset themselves can get access via friends and family.

Each packet or bottle has a scratch-off code that can be used only once, said Mr Simons. The security system behind the scenes flags any attempt to re-use codes. As well as letting people know they are getting genuine medicine, it will also alert people when fake medicines are being peddled.

If the pilot proves successful, the scheme will be extended to cover more than six million bottles and packets in the next 12 months.

“This is just the first step,” said Ms Zedlmayer. “It can be applied to any kind of medication.”

(Story by BBC)

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November 24, 2010January 8, 2011

Africa to Make a “Quantum Leap” Ahead in Forecasting Climate Change

Africa has struggled to make accurate and detailed predictions of the impact of climate change on its countries, but the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) which began earlier in 2010, will see the continent take a “quantum leap” in climate change projection, says Bruce Hewitson, the project’s Africa coordinator.

CORDEX, an initiative by the World Climate Research Programme, will help downscale the global climate model climate change projections being prepared for the next assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) so as to predict, for instance, what impact higher global temperatures might have on Lagos, Nigeria, until the end of this century.

This detailed information will feed into the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, expected to be published in 2013 or 2014.

“The priority area for CORDEX is Africa, as it is historically under-researched,” said Hewitson, who is also the co-lead author of the chapter on regional contexts in the report by IPCC Working Group II, which will look at impact, adaptation and vulnerability.

Projecting the impact of climate change requires studying changes in the long-term averages of daily weather patterns and many other factors, and can be a tricky business.

Scientists use climate models that simulate the possible impact of variables like radiation, moisture content, and the movement of air and temperature over a given period of time to help project what could happen.

To make forecasting the possible effects of climate change as comprehensive as possible, and also make the connection between current events and future consequences clearer, scientists and academics have been expanding the list of variables to include sea level rise and even food price increases and malnutrition statistics.

A climate model works by calculating what the climate is doing, say, in terms of wind, temperature and humidity at a number of points on the earth’s surface and in the atmosphere or ocean, according to an explanation on the website, climateprediction.net. The website is backed by the University of Oxford, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and The Open University, all based in the UK.

“These points are laid out as a grid covering the surface of the Earth, dividing it up into a lot of little boxes. The more boxes there are, the finer the resolution of the model and the smaller-scale climate features it can represent. From this point of view, the best climate model would be the one with the finest resolution.”

Previous climate change models for Africa have typically worked at 200 km resolution – the distance covered by each box in the grid – said Hewitson, who heads the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa.

The target for Africa is to predict climate changes for every 50 km, but some modellers might take it down to even 25 km, said Hewitson.

Fourteen climate modelling groups have already begun work, taking into account climate data from as far back as 1950 and looking beyond into 2100. Because of a lack of capacity in Africa, only two groups – one at UCT, led by Hewitson, and the other being the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa – are based on the continent

Climate models are systems of differential equations based on the basic laws of physics, fluid motion, and chemistry.To “run” a model, scientists divide the planet into a 3-dimensional grid, apply the basic equations, and evaluate the results. Atmospheric models calculate winds, heat transfer, radiation, relative humidity, and surface hydrology within each grid and evaluate interactions with neighboring points
The 12 other groups are led by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, the Danish Meteorological Institute and the University of Iowa, which are among the world’s foremost climate modelling institutions.

The climate data generated by the modelling groups will be processed by regional teams in Afrca led by African scientists, as part of the CORDEX initiative. They will be mentored by top global climate modellers such as Bill Gutowski of Iowa State University, who has been involved in efforts to build a climate research community in Africa for the last decade.

The regional teams will then use the data from the 14 climate modelling groups to develop projections, for instance, of flood frequency in a particular catchment area.

“The focus [of the modeling in Africa] is on areas that are urban, agricultural, water catchments, and other regionally important aspects,” said Hewitson.

The mentors will assist the regional teams in developing projections and writing analyses that will meet the requirement of countries wanting information on the effect of climate change on their food security, health, economic growth and a host of other sectors.

The regional teams will be finalized by the end of 2010 and data processing will start in 2011.

(UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

November 23, 2010January 24, 2011

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

GERD = Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (It’s how much countries are spending on research and development)

Contribution to peer-reviewed scientific publications by various countries.

Development, progress, recognition: these do not come accident.

Conclusion:

Robust R&D spending is necessary in order to make any significant contribution to the 21st century world we live in.

(UNESCO Science Report 2010 & The Economist)

November 23, 2010January 8, 2011

Using Africa as a Test-Bed for Sustainable Technology

Joshua Keyak, Political science student at Yeshiva University and PresenTense ’09 Greening Fellow

Generally when people talk about needing to slow down and stop climate change they point to the world’s most egregious emission offenders. While countries like the United States and China have the ability to make the largest impact on emission reduction, every country must do its part. Africa has one of the lowest carbon emissions per-capita largely due to its status as underdeveloped. In fact, by using African counties as a test bed for sustainable technologies, we can both help bring sustainability to the forefront and aid developing countries.

To make real progress we need a massive investment in sustainable infrastructure in Africa. Part of the major carbon emitters responsibility is to help developing countries ease into industrialization, but in a sustainable manner. At the same time Africans must take it upon themselves to come into the future with sustainability in mind. I do not mean to gloss over this and pretend this is going to be easy. This will necessarily be a long process with a need to address political and security issues. While there are stable African governments, there are many with dictatorial regimes and even more that are that are war torn. These forms of government certainly stand in the way of the progress of sustainability.

The use of Africa as a test-bed for sustainable technology, albeit on the periphery of its mission, has been tried by the Earth Institute. One of the biggest problems I believe this institution strives to solve, as should the powers of the world if they are serious about this issue, is how to approach Africa. For years, Africa has been looked upon as a continent riddled with tribal war dating back to ancient times. Many do not hesitate to classify this society as primitive and thus, believe that the “solution” to the “problem” is supplanting infrastructure and industrialization. If we can see that Africa is a continent which was controlled through colonization and was demoralized, split up and forced to hate, we can see that the “solution” is not so clear. Aid to Africa is not a mere imposition of our beliefs on their culture, but it is working together with their culture to bring sustainable technology to them. Once we set them on the path, they will have the tools to “fish” for themselves.

In my coming posts I will address specific factors that make Africa ripe for sustainability and the challenges to why this may never happen. At the same time I will try to suggest ways to help develop African countries in a sustainable matter.