Here is an article that Kelly and myself found about Malaria in Mozambique.
Malaria: The view from Mozambique In impoverished Mozambique, a drug trial provides glimmer of hope.
By Marc Herman — Special to GlobalPost Published: June 11, 2009 07:14 ET Updated: June 11, 2009 08:53 ET
MAPUTO, Mozambique — Mozambique is not an obvious place to expect the end of a plague. The southeast African nation has an average life expectancy of just 42, and is still recovering from a civil war between government forces and South African-backed rebels that swallowed a generation during the 1980s and 1990s. On the United Nation’s Human Development Index, Mozambique is ranked 168th out of 177 countries. Like so many success stories, Mozambique's started with coincidence. A Spanish doctor, Pedro Alonso, had been working on a malaria vaccine in neighboring Tanzania — a former English colony. But the Spanish government’s foreign aid service offered more funding if the project moved to a nation with a strong relationship to Iberia. Mozambique had been a Portuguese colony, and was suffering terribly from malaria deaths. Its subtropical climate — a marshy environment crossed by the large Zambezi and Inkomati rivers — and doctor shortage — even today barely 800 doctors for a population of 20 million — made Mozambique both in need of attention and the ideal laboratory. The project settled in a back room of Manhica district hospital, in the south of the 620 mile-long nation, in 1994. “The country was basically just coming out of the civil war,” Alonso said. But the university was open and the national medical school had never stopped teaching during the 16-year conflict. Just outside Maputo, Manhica had good links to Johannesburg, South Africa, where the project could fly in modern equipment. Today, the drug trial that began in Mozambique 15 years ago has led to hopes for the first vaccine against malaria. In a trial of 2,000 Mozambican children up to 5 years old, one in two who took an experimental vaccine — called RTS,S — did not develop the disease. Similar results in Tanzania have led Mozambique’s Ministry of Health to announce that the vaccine could be included in international vaccination programs as early as 2011.
* The article is to long so we have to seperate it between two comments.
The mosquito-born parasite is the largest killer of children in Africa. Between 300 and 500 million people contract malaria annually, Alonso said. Despite the good news of a potential vaccine, Mozambique continues to suffer terribly from malaria: According to the World Health Organization, there were more than 6.3 million reported malaria cases in Mozambique in 2007, up from about 4.6 million in 2002. The WHO estimates that there were more than 7.4 million malaria cases in the country in 2006. Before the Mozambique project, no one had seriously sought a malaria vaccine since the 1950s. Treatments for those infected are also lacking. "We don’t have so many drugs (for) malaria,” said Samuel Mabunda, director of the Mozambique Ministry of Health's Malaria Project. “[Compare] for instance antibiotics. We have a lot of antibiotics, different classes. Class A, B, C, D. Now look at the malaria drugs. There are only six or seven." “It’s pretty simple,” Alonso explained in an interview in Maputo last year. “If the head of [a pharmaceutical company] gets up this morning and announces that they’re going to invest $1 billion [in a malaria vaccine], by lunchtime ... the stock would have plummeted and the guy would be out. Who is going to buy a malaria vaccine?” If a vaccine someday hits the market, its creation will have been in a coastal valley beside a sugar plantation, on the banks of a narrow, malarial river called the Inkomati. The district, called Manhica, is in Mozambique’s south, two hours on a good road from the capital Maputo. Today the country remains troubled. As the main hospital for a constellation of villages stretching across 50 miles, Manhica District Hospital often sees patients who walk most of the day to bring their children, said the malaria project’s spokeswoman in Mozambique, Salut Renom. Renom estimated that 200 children arrive at the hospital daily, most with malaria and, if the parents are also sick, malnutrition. From two blocks down the dirt road the hospital gives off a dull moan; it’s the sound, clearer upon nearing, of children wailing. The RTS,S project’s lab is across the street and provides labwork to the hospital, and in return, uses the data in its studies. So far, 2,000 Manhica families have received the vaccine. “I was going to the hospital every week,” said Marta Macamo, a mother of three in Manhica. Macamo’s daughter, Juaciana, a tall, skinny 8-year-old, was part of the vaccine experiment. The child has not had malaria in the three years since she got the experimental vaccine, Macamo said. Macamo and her family live in a small stone house on Manhica’s south end, a five-minute walk from the river, beside Mozambique’s main highway. The yard was puddled from a recent rain when we visited, and still water pooled in the mud formed by a well beside the house. It was late afternoon, the bugs’ preferred feeding time, and a cloud of them was swarming from an old car chassis dumped in the Macamo’s yard. Macamo said Juaciana's younger brothers were not part of the vaccine study — they suffered from malaria during the vaccine trial, while their sister didn't. Since the start of the study, Macamo's smallest boy, Kelvin, sleeps with her, and she uses her body and adult immune system, she said, to protect him. Juaciana, who was older and 20 pounds heavier than her brothers, slept under the family’s only mosquito net with the elder brother. Macamo was looking for a second net, but they were still uncommon in town, and supply and demand were not in her favor. “It’s 900 Meticals,” she said — $36, or about a month’s wages.
Here are some excerpts from articles on Pneumonia.
Jeppe & Thabiso
http://www.medicinenet.com/pneumonia/article.htm Currently, over 3 million people develop pneumonia each year in the United States approximately 5% will die from pneumonia contracted by breathing in small droplets that contain the organisms that can cause pneumonia bacteria or viruses that are normally present in the mouth, throat, or nose inadvertently enter the lung (during sleep if person doesn’t cough or weakened immune system) http://www.theunion.org/download/clh/10facts_pneumonia_children.pdf • 10 to 12 million deaths occur annually in children under 5 years of age; over 90% are in the developing world. • More than 3 million (28% of all deaths) are attributable to acute respiratory infections (ARI). The largest part of the ARI deaths are due to severe and very severe pneumonia, the majority of which are curable with cheap, effective antibiotics. • It is small children – less than one year of age - living in the poorest communities who most often suffer and die from this condition. • In developing countries pneumonia is 5 times more common, and the death rate is 10 to 50 times higher, than in developed countries. • The frequency of pneumonia in children could be reduced by 10-20% through immunisation with these vaccines. Many developing countries have very low immunisation rates due to funding and delivery problems. • Important reductions could be achieved through immunisation with the new vaccines against the two most common causes of bacterial pneumonia in children but they are too expensive for most developing countries. • The ways and means are available to reduce this enormous problem and yet it remains stubbornly unresolved. This is primarily because those affected are the most vulnerable with the least access to the advantages provided by modern health care. • The ability to reach these vulnerable individuals is a challenge rarely solved. • The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) has achieved success in addressing similar challenges in the management of tuberculosis. • The mandate of this voluntary non-governmental organisation is to address the “big” challenges to lung health at a global level: surely ARI is one of them. Pneumonia - http://aihc1998.tripod.com/pneumonia.html • Pneumococcal disease kills more people each year in the U.S. than all other vaccine-preventable diseases combined. • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 150,000 - 570,00 cases of pneumococcal pneumonia occur annually in the U.S. • It causes up to 40,000 deaths in the U.S. annually and the overall case-fatality rate among the elderly is 30-40%. • About 1 out of every 20 people who contract pneumococcal pneumonia die from it. These bacteria cause 3,000 - 6,000 cases of meningitis annually and the incidence is highest among children 6-24 months and people over 65 years of age. • Pneumococcal pneumonia causes 16,000 - 55,000 cases of bacteremia each year in the U.S. • About 2 people out of 10 who contract bacteremia and 3 people out of 10 who get meningitis die from these diseases. • Alaskan natives and certain Native American populations are also at high risk for developing pneumococcal pneumonia. • Since the bacteria that causes pneumococcal disease has become resistant to so many types of modern antibiotics, treatment is often unsuccessful and the infection can quickly get out of hand. • Humans are the reservoir for these bacteria; insects and animals are not known carriers. • Pneumococcal bacteria are transmitted via person to person contact with infected respiratory droplets.
This is an excerpt from an article about the symptoms of pneumonia. http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=60945 Pneumococcal pneumonia may begin suddenly, with a severe shaking chill usually followed by • High fever • Cough • Shortness of breath • Rapid breathing • Chest pains There may be other symptoms as well. • Nausea • Vomiting • Headache • Tiredness • Muscle aches In an otherwise healthy adult, pneumococcal pneumonia usually involves one or more parts of the lungs, known as lobes. Thus, it is sometimes called lobar pneumonia. The remainder of the respiratory system is comparatively not affected. In contrast, infants, young children, and elderly people more commonly develop a relatively mild infection in other parts of the lungs, such as around the air vessels (bronchi) causing bronchopneumonia.
We have a second article, but its to long to place onto the blog so il just put the link instead.
http://www.uyaphi.com/mozambique/malaria.htm
Please can you read the two articles and comment about them :)Do you agree with the comment that Alonso made about the pharmaceutical company? (Article one)
- Mozambique is ranked 19th in the world out of 22 for high burden Tuberculosis. - It was estimated that there were 92,000 new TB cases in Mozamabique. -It is predicted that there will be an increase in the number of TB cases in Mozambique due to HIV/AIDS. - Because victims are not completeing their assigned medication, it causes multi- drug resistant TB
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria whose scientific name is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It was first isolated in 1882 by a German physician named Robert Koch who received the Nobel prize for this discovery. TB most commonly affects the lungs but also can involve almost any organ of the body. Many years ago, this disease was referred to as "consumption" because without effective treatment, these patients often would waste away. Today, of course, tuberculosis usually can be treated successfully with antibiotics.
There is also a group of organisms referred to as atypical tuberculosis. These involve other types of bacteria that are in the Mycobacterium family. Often, these organisms do not cause disease and are referred to a "colonizers," because they simply live alongside other bacteria in our bodies without causing damage. At times, these bacteria can cause an infection that is sometimes clinically like typical tuberculosis. When these atypical mycobacteria cause infection, they are often very difficult to cure. Often, drug therapy for these organisms must be administered for one and a half to two years and requires multiple medications.
A person can become infected with tuberculosis bacteria when he or she inhales minute particles of infected sputum from the air. The bacteria get into the air when someone who has a tuberculosis lung infection coughs, sneezes, shouts, or spits (which is common in some cultures). People who are nearby can then possibly breathe the bacteria into their lungs. You don't get TB by just touching the clothes or shaking the hands of someone who is infected. Tuberculosis is spread (transmitted) primarily from person to person by breathing infected air during close contact.
Hepatitis B is a liver disease. Hepatitis * means inflammation of the liver. Inflammation is the painful, red swelling that results when tissues of the body become injured or infected. Inflammation can cause organs to not work properly The hepatitis B virus causes hepatitis B. Viruses are germs that can cause sickness. For example, the flu is caused by a virus. People can pass viruses to each other Anyone can get hepatitis B, but some people are at higher risk, including • people who were born to a mother with hepatitis B • people who live with someone who has hepatitis B • people who have lived in parts of the world where hepatitis B is common • people who are exposed to blood or body fluids at work • people on hemodialysis • people who have had more than one sex partner in the last 6 months or have a history of sexually transmitted disease • injection drug users Hepatitis B usually has no symptoms. Adults and children ages 5 and older sometimes have one or more of the following symptoms: • yellowish eyes and skin, called jaundice • a longer than usual amount of time for bleeding to stop • swollen stomach or ankles • easy bruising • tiredness • upset stomach • fever • loss of appetite • diarrhea • light-colored stools • dark yellow urine You can avoid getting hepatitis B by getting the hepatitis B vaccine. Adults at higher risk of getting hepatitis B and all children should get the vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is given through three shots over a period of several months. There is no minimum age for vaccination. The second shot should be given at least 1 month after the first, and the last shot should be given at least 2 months after the second shot but no sooner than 4 months after the first. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe for pregnant women. You need all three shots to be fully protected. If you are traveling to a country where hepatitis B is common, try to get all the shots before you go. If you don’t have time to get all the shots before you go, get as many as you can. One shot may provide some protection against the virus.
Malaria is a terrible disease that affects poor and rich, young and old. The article about a vaccine is very positive for me,but my concern is how would it reach the people who cannot afford nets. Do we not have to look towards reaching people in rural, poor areas in order to truly fight a disease like malaria?
I agree with Miss Clare, if we look at the statiscics for the dead in Mozambique we will see that most people died manly because of malaria. During the summer it's even worse, even thopugh we have the desease all year, due to the lack of sanitation in the city. And it's easier to help prevent malaria through simple ways such as: teaching the people how to keep their homes clean to avoid mosquitoes, to fommigate their homes and promote the use of mosquito nets.
Here is somemore info on hepatitis b internationally:
Hepatitis B is a worldwide healthcare problem, especially in developing areas. An estimated one third of the global population has been infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Approximately 350 million people are lifelong carriers, and only 2% spontaneously seroconvert annually. Ongoing vaccination programs appear to be promising in the attempt to decrease the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) disease. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is transmitted hematogenously and sexually. The outcome of this infection is a complicated viral-host interaction that results in either an acute symptomatic disease or an asymptomatic disease. Patients may become immune to the hepatitis B virus (HBV), or they may develop a chronic carrier state. Later consequences are cirrhosis and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).2,3,4,5 Antiviral treatment may be effective in approximately one third of the patients who receive it, and for selected candidates, liver transplantation currently seems to be the only viable treatment for the latest stages of hepatitis B. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a hepadnavirus. It is an extremely resistant strain capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and humidity. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) can survive when stored for 15 years at –20°C, for 24 months at –80°C, for 6 months at room temperatures, and for 7 days at 44°C. The viral genome consists of a partially double-stranded circular DNA of 3.2 kilobase (kb) pairs that encodes 4 overlapping open reading frames, as follows: • S for the surface or envelope gene encoding the pre-S1, pre-S2, and the S protein • C for the core gene, encoding for the core nucleocapsid protein and the e antigen • X for the X gene encoding the X protein • P for the polymerase gene encoding a large protein promoting priming RNA-dependent and DNA-dependent DNA polymerase and RNase H activities An upstream region for the S (pre-S) and C (pre-C,) genes has been found. The structure of this virion is a 42-nm spherical, double-shelled particle consisting of small spheres and rods, with an average width of 22 nm. The S gene encodes the viral envelope. There are 5 mainly antigenic determinants: a, common to all HBsAg, and d, y, w, and r, which are epidemiologically important. The core antigen, HBcAg, is the protein that encloses the viral DNA. It can also be expressed on the surface of the hepatocytes, initiating a cellular immune response. The e antigen, HBeAg, comes from the core gene and is a marker of active viral replication. Usually, HBeAg can be detected in patients with circulating serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) carrier rate variation is 1-20% worldwide. This variation is related to differences in the mode of transmission and the patient's age at infection. The prevalence of the disease in different geographic areas can be characterized as follows: • Low-prevalence areas (rate of 0.1-2%) include Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In the areas of low prevalence, sexual transmission and percutaneous transmission during adulthood are the main modes of transmission. • Intermediate-prevalence areas (rate of 3-5%) include Eastern and Northern Europe, Japan, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, Latin and South America, and Central Asia. In areas of intermediate prevalence, sexual and percutaneous transmission and transmission during delivery are the major routes. • . Vaccination programs implemented in highly endemic areas such as Taiwan seem to change the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. In Taiwan, seroprevalence declined from 10% in 1984 (before vaccination programs) to less than 1% in 1994 after the implementation of vaccination programs, and the incidence of HCC declined from 0.52% to 0.13% http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/177632-overview
Here is an article that Kelly and myself found about Malaria in Mozambique.
ReplyDeleteMalaria: The view from Mozambique
In impoverished Mozambique, a drug trial provides glimmer of hope.
By Marc Herman — Special to GlobalPost
Published: June 11, 2009 07:14 ET
Updated: June 11, 2009 08:53 ET
MAPUTO, Mozambique — Mozambique is not an obvious place to expect the end of a plague.
The southeast African nation has an average life expectancy of just 42, and is still recovering from a civil war between government forces and South African-backed rebels that swallowed a generation during the 1980s and 1990s. On the United Nation’s Human Development Index, Mozambique is ranked 168th out of 177 countries.
Like so many success stories, Mozambique's started with coincidence. A Spanish doctor, Pedro Alonso, had been working on a malaria vaccine in neighboring Tanzania — a former English colony. But the Spanish government’s foreign aid service offered more funding if the project moved to a nation with a strong relationship to Iberia. Mozambique had been a Portuguese colony, and was suffering terribly from malaria deaths. Its subtropical climate — a marshy environment crossed by the large Zambezi and Inkomati rivers — and doctor shortage — even today barely 800 doctors for a population of 20 million — made Mozambique both in need of attention and the ideal laboratory. The project settled in a back room of Manhica district hospital, in the south of the 620 mile-long nation, in 1994.
“The country was basically just coming out of the civil war,” Alonso said. But the university was open and the national medical school had never stopped teaching during the 16-year conflict. Just outside Maputo, Manhica had good links to Johannesburg, South Africa, where the project could fly in modern equipment.
Today, the drug trial that began in Mozambique 15 years ago has led to hopes for the first vaccine against malaria. In a trial of 2,000 Mozambican children up to 5 years old, one in two who took an experimental vaccine — called RTS,S — did not develop the disease. Similar results in Tanzania have led Mozambique’s Ministry of Health to announce that the vaccine could be included in international vaccination programs as early as 2011.
* The article is to long so we have to seperate it between two comments.
The mosquito-born parasite is the largest killer of children in Africa. Between 300 and 500 million people contract malaria annually, Alonso said. Despite the good news of a potential vaccine, Mozambique continues to suffer terribly from malaria: According to the World Health Organization, there were more than 6.3 million reported malaria cases in Mozambique in 2007, up from about 4.6 million in 2002. The WHO estimates that there were more than 7.4 million malaria cases in the country in 2006.
ReplyDeleteBefore the Mozambique project, no one had seriously sought a malaria vaccine since the 1950s. Treatments for those infected are also lacking.
"We don’t have so many drugs (for) malaria,” said Samuel Mabunda, director of the Mozambique Ministry of Health's Malaria Project. “[Compare] for instance antibiotics. We have a lot of antibiotics, different classes. Class A, B, C, D. Now look at the malaria drugs. There are only six or seven."
“It’s pretty simple,” Alonso explained in an interview in Maputo last year. “If the head of [a pharmaceutical company] gets up this morning and announces that they’re going to invest $1 billion [in a malaria vaccine], by lunchtime ... the stock would have plummeted and the guy would be out. Who is going to buy a malaria vaccine?”
If a vaccine someday hits the market, its creation will have been in a coastal valley beside a sugar plantation, on the banks of a narrow, malarial river called the Inkomati. The district, called Manhica, is in Mozambique’s south, two hours on a good road from the capital Maputo.
Today the country remains troubled. As the main hospital for a constellation of villages stretching across 50 miles, Manhica District Hospital often sees patients who walk most of the day to bring their children, said the malaria project’s spokeswoman in Mozambique, Salut Renom. Renom estimated that 200 children arrive at the hospital daily, most with malaria and, if the parents are also sick, malnutrition. From two blocks down the dirt road the hospital gives off a dull moan; it’s the sound, clearer upon nearing, of children wailing.
The RTS,S project’s lab is across the street and provides labwork to the hospital, and in return, uses the data in its studies. So far, 2,000 Manhica families have received the vaccine.
“I was going to the hospital every week,” said Marta Macamo, a mother of three in Manhica. Macamo’s daughter, Juaciana, a tall, skinny 8-year-old, was part of the vaccine experiment. The child has not had malaria in the three years since she got the experimental vaccine, Macamo said.
Macamo and her family live in a small stone house on Manhica’s south end, a five-minute walk from the river, beside Mozambique’s main highway. The yard was puddled from a recent rain when we visited, and still water pooled in the mud formed by a well beside the house. It was late afternoon, the bugs’ preferred feeding time, and a cloud of them was swarming from an old car chassis dumped in the Macamo’s yard. Macamo said Juaciana's younger brothers were not part of the vaccine study — they suffered from malaria during the vaccine trial, while their sister didn't.
Since the start of the study, Macamo's smallest boy, Kelvin, sleeps with her, and she uses her body and adult immune system, she said, to protect him. Juaciana, who was older and 20 pounds heavier than her brothers, slept under the family’s only mosquito net with the elder brother. Macamo was looking for a second net, but they were still uncommon in town, and supply and demand were not in her favor. “It’s 900 Meticals,” she said — $36, or about a month’s wages.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/health/090317/malaria-mozambique?page=0,1
Here are some excerpts from articles on Pneumonia.
ReplyDeleteJeppe & Thabiso
http://www.medicinenet.com/pneumonia/article.htm
Currently, over 3 million people develop pneumonia each year in the United States
approximately 5% will die from pneumonia
contracted by breathing in small droplets that contain the organisms that can cause pneumonia
bacteria or viruses that are normally present in the mouth, throat, or nose inadvertently enter the lung (during sleep if person doesn’t cough or weakened immune system)
http://www.theunion.org/download/clh/10facts_pneumonia_children.pdf
• 10 to 12 million deaths occur annually in children under 5 years of age; over 90% are in the developing world.
• More than 3 million (28% of all deaths) are attributable to acute respiratory infections (ARI). The largest part of the ARI deaths are due to severe and very severe pneumonia, the majority of which are curable with cheap, effective antibiotics.
• It is small children – less than one year of age - living in the poorest communities who most often suffer and die from this condition.
• In developing countries pneumonia is 5 times more common, and the death rate is 10 to 50 times higher, than in developed countries.
• The frequency of pneumonia in children could be reduced by 10-20% through immunisation with these vaccines. Many developing countries have very low immunisation rates due to funding and delivery problems.
• Important reductions could be achieved through immunisation with the new vaccines against the two most common causes of bacterial pneumonia in children but they are too expensive for most developing countries.
• The ways and means are available to reduce this enormous problem and yet it remains stubbornly unresolved. This is primarily because those affected are the most vulnerable with the least access to the advantages provided by modern health care.
• The ability to reach these vulnerable individuals is a challenge rarely solved.
• The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) has achieved success in addressing similar challenges in the management of tuberculosis.
• The mandate of this voluntary non-governmental organisation is to address the “big” challenges to lung health at a global level: surely ARI is one of them.
Pneumonia - http://aihc1998.tripod.com/pneumonia.html
• Pneumococcal disease kills more people each year in the U.S. than all other vaccine-preventable diseases combined.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 150,000 - 570,00 cases of pneumococcal pneumonia occur annually in the U.S.
• It causes up to 40,000 deaths in the U.S. annually and the overall case-fatality rate among the elderly is 30-40%.
• About 1 out of every 20 people who contract pneumococcal pneumonia die from it. These bacteria cause 3,000 - 6,000 cases of meningitis annually and the incidence is highest among children 6-24 months and people over 65 years of age.
• Pneumococcal pneumonia causes 16,000 - 55,000 cases of bacteremia each year in the U.S.
• About 2 people out of 10 who contract bacteremia and 3 people out of 10 who get meningitis die from these diseases.
• Alaskan natives and certain Native American populations are also at high risk for developing pneumococcal pneumonia.
• Since the bacteria that causes pneumococcal disease has become resistant to so many types of modern antibiotics, treatment is often unsuccessful and the infection can quickly get out of hand.
• Humans are the reservoir for these bacteria; insects and animals are not known carriers.
• Pneumococcal bacteria are transmitted via person to person contact with infected respiratory droplets.
This is an excerpt from an article about the symptoms of pneumonia. http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=60945
ReplyDeletePneumococcal pneumonia may begin suddenly, with a severe shaking chill usually followed by
• High fever
• Cough
• Shortness of breath
• Rapid breathing
• Chest pains
There may be other symptoms as well.
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Headache
• Tiredness
• Muscle aches
In an otherwise healthy adult, pneumococcal pneumonia usually involves one or more parts of the lungs, known as lobes. Thus, it is sometimes called lobar pneumonia. The remainder of the respiratory system is comparatively not affected. In contrast, infants, young children, and elderly people more commonly develop a relatively mild infection in other parts of the lungs, such as around the air vessels (bronchi) causing bronchopneumonia.
We have a second article, but its to long to place onto the blog so il just put the link instead.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uyaphi.com/mozambique/malaria.htm
Please can you read the two articles and comment about them :)Do you agree with the comment that Alonso made about the pharmaceutical company? (Article one)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete- Mozambique is ranked 19th in the world out of 22 for high burden Tuberculosis.
ReplyDelete- It was estimated that there were 92,000 new TB cases in Mozamabique.
-It is predicted that there will be an increase in the number of TB cases in Mozambique due to HIV/AIDS.
- Because victims are not completeing their assigned medication, it causes multi- drug resistant TB
What is Tuberculosis
ReplyDeleteTuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria whose scientific name is Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It was first isolated in 1882 by a German physician named Robert Koch who received the Nobel prize for this discovery. TB most commonly affects the lungs but also can involve almost any organ of the body. Many years ago, this disease was referred to as "consumption" because without effective treatment, these patients often would waste away. Today, of course, tuberculosis usually can be treated successfully with antibiotics.
There is also a group of organisms referred to as atypical tuberculosis. These involve other types of bacteria that are in the Mycobacterium family. Often, these organisms do not cause disease and are referred to a "colonizers," because they simply live alongside other bacteria in our bodies without causing damage. At times, these bacteria can cause an infection that is sometimes clinically like typical tuberculosis. When these atypical mycobacteria cause infection, they are often very difficult to cure. Often, drug therapy for these organisms must be administered for one and a half to two years and requires multiple medications.
http://www.medicinenet.com/tuberculosis/article.htm
How does someone get TB
ReplyDeleteA person can become infected with tuberculosis bacteria when he or she inhales minute particles of infected sputum from the air. The bacteria get into the air when someone who has a tuberculosis lung infection coughs, sneezes, shouts, or spits (which is common in some cultures). People who are nearby can then possibly breathe the bacteria into their lungs. You don't get TB by just touching the clothes or shaking the hands of someone who is infected. Tuberculosis is spread (transmitted) primarily from person to person by breathing infected air during close contact.
http://www.medicinenet.com/tuberculosis/article.htm
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletehere is some info on the hepatitis B virus :
ReplyDeleteHepatitis B is a liver disease. Hepatitis * means inflammation of the liver. Inflammation is the painful, red swelling that results when tissues of the body become injured or infected. Inflammation can cause organs to not work properly
The hepatitis B virus causes hepatitis B. Viruses are germs that can cause sickness. For example, the flu is caused by a virus. People can pass viruses to each other
Anyone can get hepatitis B, but some people are at higher risk, including
• people who were born to a mother with hepatitis B
• people who live with someone who has hepatitis B
• people who have lived in parts of the world where hepatitis B is common
• people who are exposed to blood or body fluids at work
• people on hemodialysis
• people who have had more than one sex partner in the last 6 months or have a history of sexually transmitted disease
• injection drug users
Hepatitis B usually has no symptoms. Adults and children ages 5 and older sometimes have one or more of the following symptoms:
• yellowish eyes and skin, called jaundice
• a longer than usual amount of time for bleeding to stop
• swollen stomach or ankles
• easy bruising
• tiredness
• upset stomach
• fever
• loss of appetite
• diarrhea
• light-colored stools
• dark yellow urine
You can avoid getting hepatitis B by getting the hepatitis B vaccine.
Adults at higher risk of getting hepatitis B and all children should get the vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is given through three shots over a period of several months. There is no minimum age for vaccination. The second shot should be given at least 1 month after the first, and the last shot should be given at least 2 months after the second shot but no sooner than 4 months after the first. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe for pregnant women.
You need all three shots to be fully protected. If you are traveling to a country where hepatitis B is common, try to get all the shots before you go. If you don’t have time to get all the shots before you go, get as many as you can. One shot may provide some protection against the virus.
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hepb_ez/
Malaria is a terrible disease that affects poor and rich, young and old. The article about a vaccine is very positive for me,but my concern is how would it reach the people who cannot afford nets. Do we not have to look towards reaching people in rural, poor areas in order to truly fight a disease like malaria?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Miss Clare, if we look at the statiscics for the dead in Mozambique we will see that most people died manly because of malaria. During the summer it's even worse, even thopugh we have the desease all year, due to the lack of sanitation in the city. And it's easier to help prevent malaria through simple ways such as: teaching the people how to keep their homes clean to avoid mosquitoes, to fommigate their homes and promote the use of mosquito nets.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere is somemore info on hepatitis b internationally:
ReplyDeleteHepatitis B is a worldwide healthcare problem, especially in developing areas. An estimated one third of the global population has been infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Approximately 350 million people are lifelong carriers, and only 2% spontaneously seroconvert annually. Ongoing vaccination programs appear to be promising in the attempt to decrease the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) disease.
The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is transmitted hematogenously and sexually. The outcome of this infection is a complicated viral-host interaction that results in either an acute symptomatic disease or an asymptomatic disease. Patients may become immune to the hepatitis B virus (HBV), or they may develop a chronic carrier state. Later consequences are cirrhosis and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).2,3,4,5 Antiviral treatment may be effective in approximately one third of the patients who receive it, and for selected candidates, liver transplantation currently seems to be the only viable treatment for the latest stages of hepatitis B.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a hepadnavirus. It is an extremely resistant strain capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and humidity. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) can survive when stored for 15 years at –20°C, for 24 months at –80°C, for 6 months at room temperatures, and for 7 days at 44°C. The viral genome consists of a partially double-stranded circular DNA of 3.2 kilobase (kb) pairs that encodes 4 overlapping open reading frames, as follows:
• S for the surface or envelope gene encoding the pre-S1, pre-S2, and the S protein
• C for the core gene, encoding for the core nucleocapsid protein and the e antigen
• X for the X gene encoding the X protein
• P for the polymerase gene encoding a large protein promoting priming RNA-dependent and DNA-dependent DNA polymerase and RNase H activities
An upstream region for the S (pre-S) and C (pre-C,) genes has been found. The structure of this virion is a 42-nm spherical, double-shelled particle consisting of small spheres and rods, with an average width of 22 nm.
The S gene encodes the viral envelope. There are 5 mainly antigenic determinants: a, common to all HBsAg, and d, y, w, and r, which are epidemiologically important. The core antigen, HBcAg, is the protein that encloses the viral DNA. It can also be expressed on the surface of the hepatocytes, initiating a cellular immune response. The e antigen, HBeAg, comes from the core gene and is a marker of active viral replication. Usually, HBeAg can be detected in patients with circulating serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA.
The hepatitis B virus (HBV) carrier rate variation is 1-20% worldwide. This variation is related to differences in the mode of transmission and the patient's age at infection. The prevalence of the disease in different geographic areas can be characterized as follows:
• Low-prevalence areas (rate of 0.1-2%) include Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In the areas of low prevalence, sexual transmission and percutaneous transmission during adulthood are the main modes of transmission.
• Intermediate-prevalence areas (rate of 3-5%) include Eastern and Northern Europe, Japan, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, Latin and South America, and Central Asia. In areas of intermediate prevalence, sexual and percutaneous transmission and transmission during delivery are the major routes.
• . Vaccination programs implemented in highly endemic areas such as Taiwan seem to change the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. In Taiwan, seroprevalence declined from 10% in 1984 (before vaccination programs) to less than 1% in 1994 after the implementation of vaccination programs, and the incidence of HCC declined from 0.52% to 0.13%
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/177632-overview