News at a glance: Snags in emissions monitoring, negotiations on biodiversity, and a drug for sleeping sickness
CLIMATE SCIENCE
Volcano and NASA deliver blows to climate monitoring
Efforts to monitor global greenhouse gas emissions suffered two setbacks last week—one by chance, one by choice. In Hawaii, the first eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano since 1984 has cut off road access and power to a famed summit lab that has monitored atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO
2
) levels since 1958. Although lava flows have so far spared the lab, which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), measurements are unlikely to resume for several months. That means tracking data will have to...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 8, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news
With one dose, new drug may cure sleeping sickness. Could it also wipe it out?
This often fatal disease found in many African countries is painful and lengthy to treat. But a single oral dose proved incredibly effective in a clinical trial, raising hopes of eradication.(Image credit: Xavier Vaheed-DNDi) (Source: NPR Health and Science)
Source: NPR Health and Science - December 2, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Max Barnhart Source Type: news
Will a One-Dose Drug Mean the End of Sleeping Sickness? Will a One-Dose Drug Mean the End of Sleeping Sickness?
A single oral dose of acoziborole proved effective for human African trypanosomiasis in a clinical trial. The drug has potential to greatly simplify and expand treatment for sleeping sickness.Medscape Medical News (Source: Medscape Infectious Diseases Headlines)
Source: Medscape Infectious Diseases Headlines - November 30, 2022 Category: Infectious Diseases Tags: Infectious Diseases News Source Type: news
Stronger Healthcare Systems Critical for Africa ’s Socioeconomic Transformation
As Africa rebuilds following the pandemic, investment in the fight against malaria and NTDs will make healthcare systems more resilient and support longer-term pandemic preparedness. Credit: UNDP Kenya/James OchweriBy Claude Mambo MuvunyiKIGALI, Jun 22 2022 (IPS) Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems globally have battled to deal with the repercussions unleashed by the disease. From the outset, Africa was considered particularly vulnerable due to several factors: limited healthcare provision in some areas, high prevalence of HIV and TB in a number of countries, and limited fiscal room to respond t...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - June 22, 2022 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Claude Mambo Muvunyi Tags: Africa Headlines Health Poverty & SDGs TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news
Targeting the Uneven Burden of Kidney Disease on Black Americans
New treatments aim for a gene variant causing the illness in people of sub-Saharan African descent. Some experts worry that focus will neglect other factors. (Source: NYT Health)
Source: NYT Health - May 17, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Gina Kolata Tags: Kidneys Genetics and Heredity Black People Discrimination Research Drugs (Pharmaceuticals) Sleeping Sickness North Carolina Tests (Medical) Sickle Cell Anemia Source Type: news
Africa: Robert Koch's Dubious Legacy in Africa
[DW] The German medical scientist Robert Koch tried to cure to tuberculosis and sleeping sickness while working with patients in African concentration camps. His 19th-century techniqes still fuel debates about his fame. (Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine)
Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine - March 25, 2022 Category: African Health Source Type: news
How COVID Has Affected the Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. (Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health)
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - March 14, 2022 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: External Source Tags: Global Headlines Health Poverty & SDGs Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) Source Type: news
Doctors Treat Girl's Genetic Disorder with Repurposed Drug
In just 16 months, physicians went from identifying a novel rare disease in three-year-old Marley to successfully treating her with a drug previously used to treat African sleeping sickness and... (Source: The Scientist)
Source: The Scientist - December 1, 2021 Category: Science Tags: Notebook Magazine Issue Source Type: news
FDA Approves Fexinidazole as the First All-Oral Treatment for Sleeping Sickness
July 19, 2021 -- The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved fexinidazole as the first all-oral treatment for both stages of the Trypanosoma brucei gambiense form of sleeping sickness (Human African trypanosomiasis) in patients 6 years of... (Source: Drugs.com - New Drug Approvals)
Source: Drugs.com - New Drug Approvals - July 19, 2021 Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: news
Vaccine target for devastating livestock disease could change lives of millions
(Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute) The first ever vaccine target for trypanosomes, a family of parasites that cause devastating disease in animals and humans, has been discovered by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. By targeting a protein on the cell surface of the parasite Trypanosoma vivax, researchers were able to confer long-lasting protection against animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) infection in mice. (Source: EurekAlert! - Biology)
Source: EurekAlert! - Biology - May 27, 2021 Category: Biology Source Type: news
Sex cells in parasites are doing their own thing
(University of Bristol) Researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered how microbes responsible for human African sleeping sickness produce sex cells. (Source: EurekAlert! - Biology)
Source: EurekAlert! - Biology - May 11, 2021 Category: Biology Source Type: news
The Sleeping Beauties by Suzanne O ’Sullivan review – 21st century health mysteries
Sleeping sickness, strange behaviour and mass hysteria ... a neurologist makes sense of ‘psychosomatic’ illnessIn Sweden in recent years, hundreds of children of refugee families have fallen into coma-like states and not woken up again, sometimes for months or years. Dozens of people in three Nicaraguan communities have had tremors, convulsions, breathing difficulties and hallucinations that make them fight with superhuman strength and run into the jungle. Diplomats in Cuba, experiencing headaches, dizziness, tinnitus and fatigue, became convinced that they were victims of a new and terrifying sonic weapon. Older victi...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 14, 2021 Category: Science Authors: Katy Guest Tags: Health, mind and body books Culture Psychology Source Type: news
Sex cells in parasites are doing their own thing
Researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered how microbes responsible for human African sleeping sickness produce sex cells. (Source: University of Bristol news)
Source: University of Bristol news - April 13, 2021 Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Research; Faculty of Life Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, School of Biological Sciences; Press Release Source Type: news
The healthy child who wouldn ’t wake up: the strange truth of ‘mystery illnesses’
Dizzy diplomats, twitching schoolgirls, children in comas ... psychosomatic illnesses are not always as unexplainable as they seem, writes neurologist Suzanne O ’SullivanI cannot resist a news headline that refers to a mystery illness and there is no shortage to keep me interested. “Mystery of 18 twitching teenagers in New York”; “Mysterious sleeping sickness spreads in Kazakhstani village ”; “200 Colombian girls fall ill with a mysterious illness”; “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome”. One medical disorder seems to attract this description more than any other: psychosomatic illness. That the body is the ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - April 12, 2021 Category: Science Authors: Suzanne O'Sullivan Tags: Books Society books Culture Infectious diseases Medical research Psychology Science and nature books Source Type: news
Cote d'Ivoire: WHO Validates Cote d'Ivoire for Eliminating Sleeping Sickness As a Public Health Problem
[WHO] C ôte d'Ivoire has successfully eliminated human African trypanosomiasis, also known as "sleeping sickness", as a public health problem, becoming the second African country after Togo to be validated by the World Health Organization (WHO). (Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine)
Source: AllAfrica News: Health and Medicine - April 6, 2021 Category: African Health Source Type: news
