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Bawku (UE) Feb.16 GNA-P articipants at a workshop on the negative impact of malaria have been urged to wage war against malaria because it is the main cause of poverty in the Bawku area.
The workshop, organized in Bawku on Wednesday sought to inform, educate, and communicate the negative impact of malaria on the socio-economic development of the people and its burden on the family, municipality and the nation.
The participants, drawn from Pusiga, Mandago, Sugudi, and Kaltimise, were taken through the use of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN), adoption of the intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy (ITPP), case management and home-base care (HBC) methods.
Rural Urban Women and Children Development Agency (RUWACDA), a non-governmental organization working in over 60 communities in the three northern regions, organized the workshop.
The Executive Director of RUWACDA, Mr Braimah Abdulai, said malaria was the leading cause of death among women and children less than five years.
Also, statistics from the Ghana Health Service indicate that malaria accounted for than 61 percent of under-five hospital admissions and eight percent of pregnant women admissions.
Malaria was responsible for an estimated 22 percent under-five mortality and nine percent of maternal deaths in Ghana.
Mr Abdulai called on the participants to take the training serious to contribute to the prevention and control of malaria so as to help reduce human and the socio-economic cost of malaria in the Bawku Municipality.
Not the most appealing-looking house guest, but it could help combat malaria
Victoria Gill
A spider that preys on the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted to the odor of sweaty socks, according to a study.
Scientists in the UK and Kenya used previously worn socks in an experiment to find out if the spider, like its prey, was attracted to human odors.
The jumping spider appears to have evolved an affinity for smelly human feet in order to help find its prey.
The team reports its findings in the journal Biology Letters.
They say that people might be able to “recruit” this East African jumping spider, Evarcha culicivora , in the battle against malaria by encouraging the arachnids to live in their homes.
Smelly experiment
Fiona Cross, from the University of Canterbury, and Robert Jackson, from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya, carried out the study.
They were interested in this species because it is the only known predator that specifically preys on blood-carrying mosquitoes.
“We had a suspicion that human odor was attractive to the spiders before we even ran the experiment,” Ms Cross told BBC News. “We generally find these spiders in the tall grass next to houses or other buildings occupied by people.”
To test this suspicion, the team devised an aroma-based experimental set-up called an olfactometer.
They put each “test spider” into a small holding chamber into which air was pumped, either from a box containing a clean sock or one containing a worn (and therefore
The jumping spiders can kill 20 mosquitoes in one "feeding frenzy"
smelly) sock.
Each spider was able leave its holding chamber at any time and escape into an exit chamber, which did not have sock-scented air pumped into it.
The spiders supplied with the aroma of worn socks always remained in the holding chamber for longer than those exposed to the freshly washed sock.
Ms Cross said it was “unprecedented that a spider should find human odour attractive”.
But, she added, the discovery tied in with some of the spiders’ remarkable behaviour.
“When they smell blood, they can launch into feeding frenzies where they kill up to 20 mosquitoes in rapid succession, and not necessarily to eat all of them,” she explained.
“We need to learn more about why they do this – they really do go quite crazy when they are in the vicinity of blood.”
Anti-malaria arachnid
It may be a rather ugly, bloodthirsty little creature, but Evarcha culicivora could help in the ongoing and complex battle against malaria.
“It’s something that’s there in the environment for free,” said Ms Cross. “So why not do what we can to find out about this remarkable predator?”
She and her colleagues are currently trying to find out what exactly people might be able to do to attract the spiders into their homes, without also attracting the mosquitoes.
The scientists say that, in malaria zones, people should welcome these particular creepy crawlies into their houses.
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.
Didier Drogba is a household name around the world. In Ivory Coast, he is regarded as superman; perhaps more respected than either Laurent Gbagbo or Alassane Ouattara. In England he is revered. On the internet, he is a source of traffic. Globally, 550,000 people search the name “Drogba” on Google each month; 60,000 searches in the US, 74,000 searches in the United Kingdom where he is based. Last year, the no-nonsense Ivory Coast striker scored 37 goals in all competitions for his English club, Chelsea FC. His side won the English Premiership League title for 2010.
But Drogba had a nasty interaction with a well-known insect in the fall of 2010 and since then the hitman has never been the same. He was bitten by a mosquito and contracted malaria, a disease that afflicts up to 400 million people worldwide each year.
The economic consequences of Drogba’s malaria are widespread. This year the Ivorian has netted only 10 goals for Chelsea. To recap, the Drogba scored 37 goals last season, even after missing about three weeks due to the African Cup of Nations (ANC) in Angola and several other games due to injury. The striker’s fiery supremacy is shattered. Goalkeepers do not seem to worry much about Drogba’s strikes this season as they did last year.
Malaria’s impact on Africa is enormous. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a child dies from malaria every 30-40 seconds. Premature deaths and sagging national productivity are often the offspring of a tiny mosquito’s assault. In college, I wrote my final chemistry examination at the University Hospital, Legon, with a policeman standing behind my shoulders just in case I made any attempt to cheat. I was under a severe malaria attack, shivering like crazy. I’m lucky to be alive. Drogba is alive and I’m 100% sure he will make a come-back in a big way. Hundreds of thousands of children, men and women, aren’t always as lucky as I was. By the time I finish writing this piece, a handful more children will be gone due to malaria.
I cannot say that Didier Drogba’s performance this season can be fully attributed to the malaria he contracted; in any case, the contribution would be significant. Could you just imagine how many children will never accomplish their dreams in life as a result of a disease that I, still, believe is preventable and eradicable?
It is time to show malaria the Red Card. Each one of us can help.
By the way,do you know that if you follow a link from TalkAfrique to buy anything at Amazon, Amazon will give up to 2% of your of payment to supports TalkAfrique’s anti-malaria initiative? If you would like to help please CLICK HEREAmazon
Global Fund Ambassador Carla Bruni-Sarkozy with executive director Michel Kazatchkine and Melinda Gates in Benin. Photograph: John Rae/The Global Fund
By Sarah Boseley
Germany, Ireland and Sweden have suspended payments to the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria over the corrupt use of grants by African countries. Could the media storm trigger a domino effect among donors that could severely undermine the fund’s capacity to help the poor?
Until a few days ago, the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria had the enviable reputation of being one of the cleanest and safest channels of donor money to the poor in the developing world. Everybody knows there is corruption in Africa – but it never tainted the Global Fund. But now Germany, the third biggest donor to the fund after the US and France, has suspended the €200m it pledged for 2011, asking for an investigation into the fraud and misuse of money in four countries – Mauritania, Mali, Zambia and Djibouti. Ireland has also put its wallet away for the moment, delaying a decision on whether to continue its donations to the fund.
What a difference a few days makes – and how fragile is reputation. The fund now fears a domino effect. As bank crashes have taught us, loss of confidence can do terrible things. And at a time of economic recession, revelations like these can give donor governments just the excuse they need to pull the plug.
So the consequences are potentially very serious. But what has happened to cause the first dominoes to tumble? You’d think it must be some new and terrible revelation. In fact, it was a story on an agency newswire based on a report from October that is on the Global Fund’s website. Although the fund does well in preventing its money being misused, it can’t stop it entirely. The report of its inspector general detailed the corruption that had been found in a number of countries – and the steps that had been taken to root out the corruption and get the money back. The total amount of money involved is US$34m. That is 0.3% of the $13bn the fund has dispensed for disease-fighting programmes since 2007.
The frauds were not a secret. The fund, which has in the past been praised for its transparency, issued a series of press releases – the first one in September 2009, when it suspended grants to Mauritania. In June 2010, it announced that action had been taken against Zambia, which I wrote about. In December, the fund announced it had suspended grants to Mali.
So given that 0.3% ended up in the wrong hands is pretty good going – as many an NGO or business working in Africa will tell you. This should have been a storm in a teacup. But the agency story was followed up by Fox News, which laid into the fund with both fists.
Germany’s decision may have much to do with disagreements between development minister Dirk Niebel and chancellor Angela Merkel over how to prune the aid budget. Ireland’s is inevitably connected with its financial problems. Ironically, Sweden, which suspended its grant to the fund last October after seeing the inspector general’s report, was thought to have been completely satisfied by the explanations it was given and be about to announce its reinstatement, but is unlikely to do so until things quieten down.
But the real fear for the fund’s supporters will be that the storm may have been whipped up by those who want the US to slash its spending on foreign aid and will not only have the Global Fund in their sights, but also the UN. The Global Fund is already short of the money it hoped it would have to pass on to developing countries in the next two years. If the US cuts back, there can be no doubt that the cost will be measured in lives.
Sarah Boseley has won a number of awards for her work on HIV/Aids in Africa, including the One World Media Award (twice)
Germany has halted its annual payments of 200 million euros ($274 million) to the Global Fund Against AIDS, TB and Malaria due to concerns over allegations of corruption against the Fund.
Announcing suspension of the funds, German Development Minister Dirk Niebel said on Wednesday: “I take the allegations of corruption and breach of trust carried by media against the Global Fund very seriously, and I expect that the fund will promptly clear them up.”
Stressing that an investigation was urgently required into the allegations, Niebel indicated that he had halted all “further payments to the Fund until it is fully cleared up.”
With its annual contribution of 20 million euros, Germany is the third-largest donor to the U.N.-backed Fund that has an annual budget of more than $20 billion. The Fund is the single largest source for fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria across the world.
The latest developments come after an international news agency raised allegations of misappropriation and corruption against the Fund. The news agency alleged in a report that funds might have been misappropriated in several countries where the Global Fund’s controls were poor.
Following the report, the Fund acknowledged that its internal investigations had revealed some minor misappropriation of funds in several cases. But the Fund insists that it has taken strict measures to tackle the problem in all identified cases.
According to the Fund, internal investigations and audits carried out in 33 of the 145 countries where the it has grants have unearthed $34 million in misappropriated or unsubstantiated funds.
The Fund acknowledged that the amount found to be misappropriated was a large enough figure by itself, but pointed out that it amounted to only 0.3 per cent of the $13 billion the Fund has distributed to countries so far.
by RTT Staff Writer
For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com
Methods to protect pregnant women from malaria are still underutilised in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a study published today in ‘Lancet Infectious Diseases’.
A review of national control strategies by a team of international researchers, led by the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium and funded by the Consortium and the Wellcome Trust, has concluded that despite major efforts, coverage is still inadequate in many areas and needs to be scaled up.
Malaria infection in pregnancy can lead to devastating consequences for both mother and child. The World Health Organization’s recommended policy for malaria prevention and control is a package of intermittent preventive treatment – therapeutic doses of a drug at defined intervals to provide protection in young children and pregnant women – and insecticide-treated bednets. These interventions have the potential to substantially reduce the disease burden and adverse outcomes of malaria in pregnancy.
The Roll Back Malaria initiative aimed to ensure that all pregnant women could receive the drugs and that at least four out of five people at risk from malaria were using the nets in areas of high transmission by 2010.
Researchers from the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium examined specific strategies for malaria control in pregnant women from national malaria policies and calculated the number of protected pregnancies using the most recent national household cluster sample surveys. They were able to compare this to levels of malaria risk by comparing them to maps generated by the Malaria Atlas Project.
The study found that 45 of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa had an bednet policy for pregnant women and that estimated coverage was 17 per cent among the nearly 28 million pregnancies at risk of malaria in the 32 countries for which information was available. Among 39 countries with a policy on intermittent preventive treatment, just one in four pregnant women had received some treatment, despite more than three-quarters visiting an antenatal clinic.
Professor Feiko ter Kuile, leader of the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium and co-author of the study, said: “Ten years after the Abuja declaration, it is encouraging that the majority of malaria endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa have now adopted insecticide-treated nets and intermittent preventive treatment and the number of countries with nationally representative coverage data has increased to 40 out of 47.
“However, very few countries have reached either the Abuja targets or their own policy ambition, and countries are even further away from the more recent Roll Back Malaria targets set for 2010. In addition, coverage was lowest in areas with high malaria transmission, where the need is greatest.
“Whilst most countries have adopted national policies aimed at reducing and controlling malaria in pregnancy, it is clear that, with some notable exceptions, not enough progress has been made towards the new Roll Back Malaria goals or the policy ambitions of each country.
“Greater effort to fully understand the reasons why coverage is so low and to develop strategies to combat this is urgently needed to protect the tens of millions of pregnancies in sub-Saharan Africa threatened by malaria every year.”
(The Wellcome Trust)
Reference
Van Eijk, AM. Mapping coverage of malaria protection among pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa: a synthesis and analysis of national surveys. Lancet Infectious Diseases; e-pub 26 Jan 2011.
Didier Drogba has spoken about Chelsea’s dire form, and says that right now all they are looking to do is win two games back-to-back rather than get back into the title race
Chelsea’s hopes of keeping hold of their Premier League crown are slim as they trail Manchester United by seven points and have played a game more, while they have won only two of their last ten fixtures in the league.
Speaking to Sports Illustrated, Drogba said: “Instead of thinking about winning the title, we should think about winning two consecutive games. Then we’ll see. It’s not a joke, it’s true.
“We have to think about winning two consecutive games. That’s being realistic and it shows how badly we’ve been doing for the last month and a half. It’s something that has to change and we’re not far from that.
“Now everybody is coming back from injuries it is going to help us. When you don’t win games, yeah, you lose confidence. The only way to get back your confidence and be able to say we can still win the league would be to win two or three consecutive games.
“We’ve had a lot of injured players and the team has changed from last year. We lost five great players in Michael Ballack, Juliano Belletti, Deco, Ricardo Carvalho and Joe Cole.
“We replaced them with young players like Jeffrey Bruma, Gael Kakuta, Josh McEachran and Patrick van Aanholt. They are good players but need time to adapt.”
Chelsea began the season on fire, firing six goals past both West Bromwich Albion and Wigan Athletic in their opening two fixtures. But their free-scoring ways are now a thing of the past, while Drogba himself conceded that his form must improve.
Drogba continued: ”What happened is just that the season is very long. I said during that time that maybe some difficult moments would come, so we’d have to be sure that these moments wouldn’t be long. Unfortunately, it’s longer than what we thought it would be.
”I’ve had malaria and surgery before the beginning of the season for my hernia to make sure I’ll be okay for the next few years. I won’t say I’m happy because we’re having a difficult moment, but when you look at the amount of games I’ve played and the number of goals and assists I’ve had, I know it’s not the best, but it’s not bad.
”I can continue to improve that. I’m not worried about my performance. What is really important for me is for the team to go back to the winning way. If we win the league and I score only ten goals, for me it’s fine.”
Drogba is still overcoming the affects of that malaria problem, which was initially diagnosed as ‘flu.
”It was really bad, so bad that it lasted two months,” he added. ”It should be something that could be solved in a few weeks. At first the tests didn’t show that it was malaria. The doctor thought it was ‘flu, so that’s why we lost time.
”While we thought it was ‘flu I was playing, because for me I can handle ‘flu. I lost fitness, but I was working hard and trying to help the team. For me to be playing now, it’s already a good start because it was a difficult moment for me to have malaria. Very difficult.”
Drogba also played down the effect of the departure of Ray Wilkins, who was effectively sacked as the club’s assistant manager in November.
“He was part of the team for a bit more than two years. But even when he was there we lost some games,” Drogba explained. ”Last year we had a bad moment as well when he was there. I think it’s not about Ray leaving the club. It’s about the players not being able to play at their best, including me. For sure we’ll win a lot of games and lose some games, but it’s not an individual that would make a big difference like this in our results. I think it’s collective, the team.”
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