Exploring the genome of the river blindness parasite
Researchers decoded the genome of the parasite that causes the skin and eye infection known as river blindness. The findings could lead to improved ways to treat and prevent the disease. (Source: NIH Research Matters)
Source: NIH Research Matters - December 5, 2016 Category: Research Source Type: news
This Group Helps Fight Devastating Diseases The World Ignores
This article is part HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to eliminate them.
This group is developing drugs to treat diseases that are too often left behind.
The Drugs For Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) develops treatments for neglected tropical diseases ― a group of at least 18 diseases, such as elephantiasis and river blindness, which affect more than 1 billion people but are largely unknown and under-resourced since they mainly impact poor communities.
“They’re diseases that nobody has ever heard of, that are di...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - December 1, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
Study sheds light on parasite that causes river blindness
The parasite that causes river blindness infects about 37 million people in parts of Africa and Latin America, causing blindness and other major eye and skin diseases in about 5 million of them. A study now sheds light on the genetic makeup of the parasite, a step toward the goal of eradication. (Source: ScienceDaily Headlines)
Source: ScienceDaily Headlines - November 22, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news
Study sheds light on parasite that causes river blindness
(Washington University School of Medicine) The parasite that causes river blindness infects about 37 million people in parts of Africa and Latin America, causing blindness and other major eye and skin diseases in about 5 million of them. A study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis sheds light on the genetic makeup of the parasite, a step toward the goal of eradication. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)
Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health - November 22, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: news
NIAID-supported scientists sequence, explore the genome of the river blindness parasite
(NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Scientists have sequenced the genome of the parasitic worm responsible for causing onchocerciasis -- an eye and skin infection more commonly known as river blindness. Through their work, researchers have gained insight into the workings of the parasite and identified proteins that potentially could be targeted with existing drugs or provide areas for developing new treatments and a preventive vaccine. The NIAID-supported research is described in a pair of papers published this week in Nature Microbiology. (Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases)
Source: EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases - November 21, 2016 Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: news
Plan of Action for the Elimination of Neglected Infectious Diseases and Post-Elimination Actions 2016-2022
World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization. 07/07/2016 This 33-page document, prepared for the 68th Session of the Regional Committee of the World Health Organization for the Americas in September 2016, provides a six-year Plan of Action for neglected infectious diseases (NIDs) that proposes up-to-date lines of action to reduce morbidity, disability, and mortality; and to more rapidly advance efforts to eliminate NIDs as public health problems and stop NID transmission. It will address the surveillance, management, control, and elimination of 13 diseases: blinding trachoma, Chagas disease, cystic echinococ...
Source: Disaster Lit: Resource Guide for Disaster Medicine and Public Health - October 1, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Authors: The U.S. National Library of Medicine Source Type: news
Merck Congratulates Guatemala as Fourth Country in Latin America to Achieve WHO Verification of Elimination of River Blindness
Dateline City:
KENILWORTH, N.J.KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada,
commends the government of Guatemala on being the fourth country in
Latin America to receive World Health Organization (WHO) verification of
the elimination of river blindness (onchocerciasis).Language:
EnglishContact: MerckLainie Keller, 908-236-5036Ticker Slug:Ticker:MRKExchange:NYSEread more (Source: Merck)
Source: Merck - September 29, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Corporate Responsibility News Latest News Source Type: news
‘It’s Always Personal’
Whenever Priya Agrawal went to sleep, she thought of the women whose lives she had not been able to save during her work in India and Africa. “You close your eyes and they are on the inside of your eyelids,” she recalls. “Every single time I wasn’t able to get the blood in time for the woman dying in childbirth, there had been five, ten opportunities to prevent her even getting to that stage.”Dr Agrawal is Executive Director ofMSD for Mothers*, which is the pharma manufacturer ’s $500 million, ten-year commitment to ending preventable maternal mortality. Maternal mortality unacceptably highEvery day, approxim...
Source: EyeForPharma - August 23, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Adam Hill Source Type: news
Nigeria: Iri - River Blindness Ravages Community
[Daily Trust] Kaduna -Rivers are highly valued among rural dwellers because of the roles they play in the lives of the people. However, for residents of Iri, a village in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, the river that flows across it, is not only a source for drinking water, farming and other domestic uses, but also a source of concern as it breeds blackflies which cause river blindness. (Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine)
Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine - August 9, 2016 Category: African Health Source Type: news
Nigeria: The Impact of River Blindness on Garbabi Community
[Daily Trust] Jalingo -Story of communities with large population of people who have lost their sight because of over 50 years attack of river blindness (Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine)
Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine - May 31, 2016 Category: African Health Source Type: news
Nigeria: 'How Neglected Diseases Ravage Kaduna LGAs'
[Daily Trust] Zaria -The Neglected Tropical Diseases: Onchocerciasis (River Blindness), and Lymphatic Filariasis (Elephanthiatis), are diseases that can kill yet not given adequate attention in Kaduna State, Sight Savers, an international non-governmental organisation has said. (Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine)
Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine - May 17, 2016 Category: African Health Source Type: news
Plaudits due: how a search through soil led to a potent weapon against parasitic disease
Scientists William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura were honoured with the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering a drug that has radically lowered incidences of parasitic diseases river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. Elly Earls reports. (Source: Pharmaceutical Technology)
Source: Pharmaceutical Technology - April 20, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Source Type: news
Innovative partnership brings to market new tools for neglected tropical diseases
(PATH) PATH and Standard Diagnostics (SD)/Alere announced today the commercial availability of two rapid diagnostic tools for onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. Designed for use in disease surveillance, the antibody-based tests are part of a suite of diagnostic innovations intended to support the elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), a group of illnesses that affect more than a billion people worldwide. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)
Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health - April 11, 2016 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: news
Featured Paper: Allergy the Price of Immunity
We would like to draw your attention to a paper recently published in PLOS Computational Biology: Comparisons of Allergenic and Metazoan Parasite Proteins: Allergy the Price of Immunity by Nidhi Tyagi, et. al.
It is thought that part of our immune system has evolved to combat and provide immunity against infection by parasitic worms. However, in the absence of parasitic infection, this same arm of the immune system can become hyper-responsive and mistakenly target allergenic proteins in food or the environment. This results in an unregulated allergic response, which can sometimes be lethal.
The researchers used computatio...
Source: WormBase - March 8, 2016 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Ranjana Kishore Tags: Featured Papers news paper of interest Source Type: news
Merck and the Mectizan Donation Program Donate $1 Million to the END Fund for Efforts to Help Eliminate River Blindness in Africa
Dateline City:
KENILWORTH, N.J.
Since 1987 Merck Has Donated More than Two Billion Treatments of Mectizan to Help Eliminate River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis
KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada,
announced today that the company, together with the Mectizan Donation
Program, is donating $1 million to the END Fund in support of efforts in
Africa to eliminate river blindness, which is also known as
...
Source: Merck.com - Corporate News - March 4, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Corporate News Corporate Responsibility News Latest News #Merck #MRK $MRK END Fund Mectizan NYSE:MRK River Blindness Source Type: news
