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MALARIA INFECTION RATES DECLINING WORLDWIDE, WHO SAYS
Deutsche Welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15473631,00.html
Oct 20 2011
Germany
Author: Cyrus Farivar (AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Sean Sinico
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Millions of people
are affected by malaria worldwideThe World Health Organization declares
Armenia as "malaria-free," while a new vaccine shows promise.
A Ghanaian malaria expert says results are "remarkable."
Public health experts announced two major breakthroughs in malaria
research and eradication this week. The World Health Organization
declared Armenia malaria-free and a new trial in a malaria vaccine
had cut infection rates by 50 percent.
The WHO also said global malaria infection rates have dropped by
20 percent over the last decade, adding that there were 225 million
cases of malaria and an estimated 781,000 deaths in 2009.
The WHO announced on Monday that malaria had been eliminated in the
Caucasus nation.
"I have great pleasure in announcing that Armenia has been certified
by WHO as malaria-free," said Dr. Margaret Chan, the head of the WHO,
in a speech in Seattle. "This happens only when a country has excellent
surveillance and response capacity, able to detect every imported case
and ensure that it does not ignite a re-establishment of transmission."
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's director, spoke in Seattle this week She
added that significant progress has been made in eradicating malaria
from Europe and its periphery.
"The malaria map is shrinking," she said. "In 2009, for the first time,
not a single case of falciparum malaria was reported in the European
Region, and this trend continues. WHO procedures for certifying a
country as malaria-free, abandoned in the 1980s, were reinstated in
2004. Since 2007, Morocco, Turkmenistan, and United Arab Emirates
have been certified as malaria-free."
According to the WHO, malaria was prevalent in Armenia until the
1950s, and was thought ot have been eradicated in 1963. The disease
resurfaced in the 1990s, but now has been since eliminated due to
control intervention, long-lasting insecticidal nets, insecticides,
and better diagnostic techniques.
New clinical trial
The public health community has been very encouraged by the first
results of a large-scale trial on an advanced malaria vaccine candidate
drug, known officially as RTS,S/AS01. The drug was first created in
a Belgian lab in 1987 by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and
entered smaller-scale testing in the United States and Africa in the
subsequent years.
Malaria is caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes. The new
vaccine is designed to take effect once the parasite enters the human
bloodstream by forcing the body's own immune system to react. Then,
the activated immune system prevents the parasite from maturing and
reproducing in the body.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
GlaxoSmithKline was the company that originally developed this
vaccine candidate The WHO reported that in its preliminary results,
it reduced malaria infections by 55 percent when given to children
under the age of 17 months. The trial tested over 15,000 infants in
seven countries across sub-Saharan Africa, including Burkina Faso,
Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
"This is remarkable when you consider that there has never been
a successful vaccine against a human parasite," Tsiri Agbenyega,
chair of the RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership and head of malaria
research at Komfo-Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana, told
the AFP news agency.
The results of the study were published Tuesday in the New England
Journal of Medicine and were presented at the Malaria Forum conference
in Seattle.
The public health and medical community have embraced these promising
results so far.
"It's been a long time coming, and indeed we are still not there
yet, but it is becoming increasingly clear that we really do have
the first effective vaccine against a parasitic disease in humans,"
wrote Nicholas White of Thailand's Mahidol University in an editorial
in the New England Journal of Medicine, noting that he expected the
drug treatment to be available in "just over three years."
From: A. Papazian
Deutsche Welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15473631,00.html
Oct 20 2011
Germany
Author: Cyrus Farivar (AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Sean Sinico
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Millions of people
are affected by malaria worldwideThe World Health Organization declares
Armenia as "malaria-free," while a new vaccine shows promise.
A Ghanaian malaria expert says results are "remarkable."
Public health experts announced two major breakthroughs in malaria
research and eradication this week. The World Health Organization
declared Armenia malaria-free and a new trial in a malaria vaccine
had cut infection rates by 50 percent.
The WHO also said global malaria infection rates have dropped by
20 percent over the last decade, adding that there were 225 million
cases of malaria and an estimated 781,000 deaths in 2009.
The WHO announced on Monday that malaria had been eliminated in the
Caucasus nation.
"I have great pleasure in announcing that Armenia has been certified
by WHO as malaria-free," said Dr. Margaret Chan, the head of the WHO,
in a speech in Seattle. "This happens only when a country has excellent
surveillance and response capacity, able to detect every imported case
and ensure that it does not ignite a re-establishment of transmission."
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's director, spoke in Seattle this week She
added that significant progress has been made in eradicating malaria
from Europe and its periphery.
"The malaria map is shrinking," she said. "In 2009, for the first time,
not a single case of falciparum malaria was reported in the European
Region, and this trend continues. WHO procedures for certifying a
country as malaria-free, abandoned in the 1980s, were reinstated in
2004. Since 2007, Morocco, Turkmenistan, and United Arab Emirates
have been certified as malaria-free."
According to the WHO, malaria was prevalent in Armenia until the
1950s, and was thought ot have been eradicated in 1963. The disease
resurfaced in the 1990s, but now has been since eliminated due to
control intervention, long-lasting insecticidal nets, insecticides,
and better diagnostic techniques.
New clinical trial
The public health community has been very encouraged by the first
results of a large-scale trial on an advanced malaria vaccine candidate
drug, known officially as RTS,S/AS01. The drug was first created in
a Belgian lab in 1987 by the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and
entered smaller-scale testing in the United States and Africa in the
subsequent years.
Malaria is caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes. The new
vaccine is designed to take effect once the parasite enters the human
bloodstream by forcing the body's own immune system to react. Then,
the activated immune system prevents the parasite from maturing and
reproducing in the body.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
GlaxoSmithKline was the company that originally developed this
vaccine candidate The WHO reported that in its preliminary results,
it reduced malaria infections by 55 percent when given to children
under the age of 17 months. The trial tested over 15,000 infants in
seven countries across sub-Saharan Africa, including Burkina Faso,
Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
"This is remarkable when you consider that there has never been
a successful vaccine against a human parasite," Tsiri Agbenyega,
chair of the RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership and head of malaria
research at Komfo-Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana, told
the AFP news agency.
The results of the study were published Tuesday in the New England
Journal of Medicine and were presented at the Malaria Forum conference
in Seattle.
The public health and medical community have embraced these promising
results so far.
"It's been a long time coming, and indeed we are still not there
yet, but it is becoming increasingly clear that we really do have
the first effective vaccine against a parasitic disease in humans,"
wrote Nicholas White of Thailand's Mahidol University in an editorial
in the New England Journal of Medicine, noting that he expected the
drug treatment to be available in "just over three years."
From: A. Papazian