Kafrican
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 26, 2015
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Utafiti mpya umeonyesha kuna njia inaweza kufanya mbu wawe hawana uwezo wa kuambukiza mtu malaria. Watakua ni kero tu wakikuuma lakini watakua hawazambazi tena malaria. Tuombe Mungu hawa watafiti wafanyikiwe manake malaria inaua watu wengi sana Africa.
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A Kenyan-British team of scientists has discovered a microbe to stop malaria transmission
Scientists in Kenya have discovered a novel method with significant potential to completely stop mosquitos from transmitting the parasites which cause malaria in humans.
The team of scientists mostly from Kenya and the UK plus one from South Africa have been studying mosquitoes on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and discovered that Microsporidia MB, a microorganism that lives in a mosquito’s gut and reproductive tract completely protects the mosquito from being infected with plasmodium the parasite that causes malaria.
Microsporidia are fungi, or at least closely related to them. Like plasmodium, which are protozoans they are also known to live inside mosquitoes as parasites. Mosquitoes inject their saliva into the skin during blood feeding to facilitate blood-feeding. Their saliva sometimes contains plasmodium which is usually injected together with their saliva resulting in malaria transmission. According to the study, the Microsporidia MB reduces the establishment of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite in the guts of the mosquitoes and impairs the colonization of the salivary glands by the parasite.
Scientists believe this makes the Microsporidia MB a realistic candidate as an eco-friendly and sustainable strategy to replace harmful mosquito population with harmless ones and to help with prospects for malaria control. The hope is that by infecting mosquitoes in a region with Microsporidia they will no longer be able to infect humans with malaria parasites.
This strategy has been demonstrated before in a city in northern Australia where mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium was deployed on a large scale and effectively used to stop all outbreaks of dengue fever for more than four years.
Last month, World Health Organization reported that progress in the fight against malaria, which kills 400,000 people annually, had stalled as both the parasite and mosquitoes are showing increasing resistance to treatments.
The discovery of the microbe comes as current malaria control measures are starting to be seen as insufficient or ineffective. There have been reports of drug resistance such as Artemisinin resistance in several regions and insecticide resistance in 73 countries in 2019. The new RTS,S malaria vaccine approved in 2015 has low efficacy and could only decrease malaria cases by 39% and severe cases by 29% in clinical trials.
In contrast, commonly used vaccines are over 85% to 95% effective. There have been no significant reduction in the annual numbers of malaria cases since 2014 and there are concerns that unless new ways to stop the disease are developed, progress against malaria won’t just slow. It will reverse.
Sub-Saharan Africa carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2018, an estimated 228 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide with Sub Saharan Africa accounting for 93% of the cases and 94% of deaths. The disease, spread by female Anopheles is already costing the continent’s economy about $12 billion a year in direct losses and saddles families with crippling medical costs.
Source: Quartz Africa
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A Kenyan-British team of scientists has discovered a microbe to stop malaria transmission
Scientists in Kenya have discovered a novel method with significant potential to completely stop mosquitos from transmitting the parasites which cause malaria in humans.
The team of scientists mostly from Kenya and the UK plus one from South Africa have been studying mosquitoes on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and discovered that Microsporidia MB, a microorganism that lives in a mosquito’s gut and reproductive tract completely protects the mosquito from being infected with plasmodium the parasite that causes malaria.
Microsporidia are fungi, or at least closely related to them. Like plasmodium, which are protozoans they are also known to live inside mosquitoes as parasites. Mosquitoes inject their saliva into the skin during blood feeding to facilitate blood-feeding. Their saliva sometimes contains plasmodium which is usually injected together with their saliva resulting in malaria transmission. According to the study, the Microsporidia MB reduces the establishment of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite in the guts of the mosquitoes and impairs the colonization of the salivary glands by the parasite.
Scientists believe this makes the Microsporidia MB a realistic candidate as an eco-friendly and sustainable strategy to replace harmful mosquito population with harmless ones and to help with prospects for malaria control. The hope is that by infecting mosquitoes in a region with Microsporidia they will no longer be able to infect humans with malaria parasites.
This strategy has been demonstrated before in a city in northern Australia where mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium was deployed on a large scale and effectively used to stop all outbreaks of dengue fever for more than four years.
Last month, World Health Organization reported that progress in the fight against malaria, which kills 400,000 people annually, had stalled as both the parasite and mosquitoes are showing increasing resistance to treatments.
The discovery of the microbe comes as current malaria control measures are starting to be seen as insufficient or ineffective. There have been reports of drug resistance such as Artemisinin resistance in several regions and insecticide resistance in 73 countries in 2019. The new RTS,S malaria vaccine approved in 2015 has low efficacy and could only decrease malaria cases by 39% and severe cases by 29% in clinical trials.
In contrast, commonly used vaccines are over 85% to 95% effective. There have been no significant reduction in the annual numbers of malaria cases since 2014 and there are concerns that unless new ways to stop the disease are developed, progress against malaria won’t just slow. It will reverse.
Sub-Saharan Africa carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2018, an estimated 228 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide with Sub Saharan Africa accounting for 93% of the cases and 94% of deaths. The disease, spread by female Anopheles is already costing the continent’s economy about $12 billion a year in direct losses and saddles families with crippling medical costs.
Source: Quartz Africa
