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Continued from page 18 – Scientists make Gene Link toAfrican HI Epidemic“Something that protected against malaria in the past isnow leaving the host more susceptible to HIV,” ProfessorWeiss said.Matthew Dolan, of the San Antonio Military MedicalCentre in Texas, said: “After thousands of years ofadaptation, this Duffy variant rose to high frequencybecause it helped protect against malaria. Now, withanother global pandemic on the scene, this same variantrenders people more susceptible to HIV. It shows thecomplex interplay between historically importantdiseases and susceptibility in contemporary times.”For the study, published in the journal Cell Host &Microbe, scientists examined a group of US Air Forcepersonnel, of whom more than 1,200 are HIV-positive,and who have been followed for nearly 22 years. TheDuffy-negative genotype was seen almost exclusively inAfrican-Americans.A continent cursed— Sub-Saharan Africa is the globe’s most Aids-affectedregion. In 2005, 24.5 million of its people were livingwith HIV and of all Aids sufferers, 64 per cent live there— In 2005, about 2.7 million people became infectedwith HIV and more than two million died— More than two million children under 15 are HIVpositiveand more than 90 per cent live in Africa— About 12 million African children under 17 have lostone or both parents to Aids— About 72 per cent of all people needing anti-retroviraltreatment live in Africa, and only one in six receives thenecessary medicine— Swaziland has the highest HIV rate, at 33.4 per cent ofpopulation. Botswana has 24.1 per cent and Zimbabwe20.1 per cent Source: UNAidshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4345263.ece☻☻☻☻☻☻Herbal Medicines for theTreatment of Malaria inKamuli District, UgandaJohn R.S. TabutiMakerere University, Kampala, UgandaAbstractMalaria is the single most important cause of ill health,death and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its management-18- Traditional African Clinic October 2008is complicated because the disease has developedresistance to the most commonly used treatments. A surveycomprising of Semi-Structured Interviews and aquestionnaire was undertaken in the rural villages ofBuseete and Busambira found in Kamuli district, Uganda,to document herbal medicines used in the treatment ofmalaria and to document existing knowledge, attitudesand practices related to malaria recognition, control andtreatment.The people were knowledgeable about malaria. Malariaattacked individuals an average of six times a year.Conditions favoring the breeding of mosquitoes, such asdense bush, were evident in all homesteads. Preferredmalaria treatment was biased towards the AllopathicMedicine (AM) system. This preference for AM wasattributed to ignorance of how to exploit herbal medicinesfor the treatment of malaria and also to the belief thatallopathic medicines were superior to herbal medicines.Some respondents stated a preference to herbalmedicines, though. This preference was motivated by thefree and ready accessibility to plants. Knowledge of usingherbal medicines was average and was mainly restrictedto women.Twenty seven species were reportedly used inantimalarial herbal preparations. The most frequentlymentioned species were Vernonia amygdalina,Momordica foetida, Zanthoxylum chalybeum, Lantanacamara and Mangifera indica. Concoctions were preparedas cold extracts and were administered in variable doses.It is proposed that the most frequently mentioned speciesbe considered for further research to evaluate theirefficacy and safety.http://www.wlbcenter.org/drawer/reports/final_report.pdf☻☻☻☻☻☻9 Million Children WorldwideDied Before Age 5Rate of under-five mortality dipped slightly from2006, UNICEF saysReutersSeptember 11, 2008LONDON - More than 9 million children globally diedbefore their fifth birthday in 2007, down slightly from2006, but a huge gap remains between rich and poorcountries, especially in Africa, UNICEF said on Friday.Efforts to promote breastfeeding, immunizations andanti-malaria measures have helped cut child deaths to 9.2million from 9.7 million a year ago and 12.7 million in1990, the figures from the United Nations Children’sFund showed. Continued on page 19
Continued from page 18 – 9 Million Children WorldwideDied Before Age 5“Since 1960, the global under-five mortality rate hasdeclined more than 60 percent, and the new data showsthe downward trend continues,” UNICEF ExecutiveDirector Ann Veneman said in a statement.Improvements in Latin America and the Caribbean,Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union andin parts of Asia drove the overall decline, but deathsremain high in sub-Saharan Africa where one in sevenchildren dies before age 5.AIDS is still a major killer of children in sub-SaharanAfrica, though countries such as Eritrea, Malawi,Mozambique, Niger and Ethiopia have made significantprogress in cutting mortality rates, UNICEF said.“Sub-Saharan Africa now accounts for almost half of the9.2 million deaths among children in this age groupannually,” according to the UNICEF report published inthe journal Lancet.“High levels of fertility...together with high levels ofmortality in children aged less than 5 years have led to anincrease in the absolute number of deaths (in thisregion).”Worldwide, the death rate for children under age 5 was68 per 1,000 live births in 2007, down from the 93 per1,000 in 1990 and 72 per 1,000 a year ago.Sierra Leone had the worst under-five mortality rate inthe world with 262 out of every 1,000 children dyingbefore their fifth birthday. The rate in industrializednations was 6 per 1,000.A number of countries, including Laos, Bangladesh,Bolivia and Nepal, have also made good progress towardmeeting global targets to reduce the child mortality ratesby two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, UNICEF said.“Recent data also indicate encouraging improvements inmany of the basic health interventions, such as early andexclusive breast feeding, measles immunization, VitaminA supplementation, the use of insecticide-treated nets toprevent malaria, and prevention and treatment of AIDS,”Veneman said.“These interventions are expected to result in furtherdeclines in child mortality over the coming years.”URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26665596/☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻-19- Traditional African Clinic October 2008Malaria Drug ‘Contributing toAntibiotic Resistance’SciDev.NetDaily MonitorAugust 3, 2008A new study shows that overuse of a drug used toprevent and treat malaria may be contributing to growingresistance to a related antibiotic.Researchers report in the journal PloS ONE thatEscherichia coli bacteria resistant to the antibioticciprofloxacin – a type of fluroquinolone – were detectedin the digestive tracts of villagers from remote rainforestcommunities in Guyana, despite them never having beengiven the drug.Most of the villagers had been given the drug chloroquine– a drug closely related to ciprofloxacin – to prevent andtreat malaria.535 villagers were sampled for resistant bacteria in thethree-year study, with 4.8 per cent found to be carryingciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli.Guyana recorded over 11,000 cases of malaria last year,the Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, toldSciDev.Net. He said the findings were “interesting” andthat the Ministry of Health would commission its ownstudy to test the accuracy of the research results.The antibiotic ciprofloxacin is used throughout the worldto treat bacterial infections, including pneumonia, urinarytract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. This isthe first study to show that resistance can emerge inindividuals never exposed to the antibiotic.Drug resistant bacteria are known to arise from overuseof antibiotics, which is why researchers were surprised todiscover that they can develop in areas that do not haveaccess to ciprofloxacin, says study co author MichaelSilverman, an infectious disease specialist at LakeridgeHealth Network in Ontario, Canada.In fact, he says, ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli were evenmore widespread in remote Guyanese villages than in theUnited States intensive care units “where every secondperson is on antibiotics”.E. coli is one of the most common causes of infection inhumans. A decade ago it was nearly universallysusceptible to ciprofloxacin,” says Andrew Simor, asenior scientist at the Sunnybrooke Health sciencesCenter at the University of Toronto.Today, he says, as many as 30 per cent of hospitalpatients tested have E. coli that fails to respond tociprofloxacin. Continued on page 20
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