World Leprosy Day - Sunday 29, January

     Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, an acid-fast, rod-shaped bacillus. The disease mainly affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract and also the eyes, apart from some other structures.
      Leprosy is curable and treatment provided in the early stages averts disability.
     Multidrug therapy (MDT) treatment has been made available by WHO free of charge to all patients worldwide since 1995, and provides a simple yet highly effective cure for all types of leprosy.

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Leprosy today

         The diagnosis and treatment of leprosy today is easy and most endemic countries are striving to fully integrate leprosy services into existing general health services. This is especially important for those under-served and marginalised communities most at risk from leprosy, often the poorest of the poor.
According to official reports received from 121 countries and territories, the global registered prevalence of leprosy at the beginning of 2009 stood at 213 036 cases, while the number of new cases detected during 2008 was 249 007. The number of new cases detected globally has fallen by 9126 (a 4% decrease) during 2008 compared with 2007.
         Pockets of high endemicity still remain in some areas of Angola, Brazil, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, and the United Republic of Tanzania. These countries remain highly committed to eliminating the disease, and continue to intensify their leprosy control activities.

Improved Treatment for Severe Malaria Saves More Lives

Malaria kills around one million people every year, with nine in ten deaths being in young African children. 

• Severe malaria, marked by serious symptoms such as coma, convulsions, or difficulty breathing, progresses rapidly and is particularly deadly. Those who manage to survive are often left with life-long neurological damage.

• Severe malaria is still mostly treated with the drug quinine, while uncomplicated malaria is treated with drugs containing derivates of artemisinin, an extract from a Chinese plant. In early 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly recommended that adults with severe malaria be treated with artesunate, a derivate of artemisinin, because it is more effective and has fewer side effects than quinine.

Now, the results from a large trial in nine African countries provide strong evidence that children would also benefit from the newer drug. MSF is already treating severe malaria in children with a drug derived from artemisinin and will now widely introduce artesunate. Artesunate should be used to treat both adults and children with severe malaria so that many more lives can be saved.
But wider obstacles remain: WHO treatment recommendations have yet to be revised in light of the latest evidence in children, and most countries have yet to recommend artesunate in place of quinine for either adults or children. And international donors have yet to put their full weight behind the latest evidence.

Breakthrough Meningitis Vaccine Developed for Africa at Affordable Price

          A new conjugate vaccine against meningococcus A costing only $0.5 (£0.3; €0.4) a dose that has been developed for use in Africa is about to be introduced for the first time in a national vaccination programme in Burkina Faso, researchers announced.

• The campaign to vaccinate all children and young adults from the ages of 1 to 29 years with the vaccine, MenAfriVac, will begin in Burkina Faso on 6 December. Niger and Mali will follow with similar vaccination campaigns.

Countries in the so called meningitis belt in sub-Saharan Africa—from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east—have had regular epidemics of meningococcal meningitis for the past century. Almost all of the major outbreaks are caused by group A Neisseria menigitidis.

Sources:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs141/en/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001633

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org

World AIDS Day - 1 December

                                                                    World AIDS Day
                                                                                1 December

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                    In 1988, the General Assembly expressed deep concern at the pandemic proportions of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Noting that the World Health Organization had declared 1 December 1988 World AIDS Day, the Assembly stressed the importance of observing that occasion (resolution 43/15). Today, over 41 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. To combat HIV/AIDS , malaria and other diseases is one of the Millennium Development Goals which all 191 United Nations Member States have pledged to meet by the year 2015.

The World AIDS Campaign (WAC) has chosen as its theme from 2005 to 2010:

“Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.”