Tuesday, 24 April 2012 13:56

Written by Niamh Griffin

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A new prize-fund of two million euro for scientists working on vaccines has been welcomed by a leading Irish researcher.

Dr Anne Moore, pharmacology lecturer and researcher at University College Cork (UCC), said the European Commission prize is an exciting development.

“This will be of great benefit and will make an impact on my work and that going on around Europe,” she said. “It is a more simplified application process than the normal EU grant application, less cumbersome and more focused.”

The prize targets research into methods of stabilising vaccines for diseases including TB and malaria. According to Dr Moore many of the existing vaccines are difficult to transport, expensive to store and often destablise in the intense heat of regions like Sub-Saharan Africa where they are most needed.

The scientist, who has also worked with the University of Michigan and Oxford University, said research into these challenges is being carried out by everyone from SMEs to large pharmaceutical companies.

The UCC department is at present developing an “Immunopatch”. Dr Moore said this means a small patch with tiny solid needles made of vaccine which can be stuck on someone’s skin to directly impart the vaccine to a sick person.

Friday, 03 February 2012 18:12

Written by Yojana Sharma

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[LONDON] A major public-private initiative to control or eliminate at least ten neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2020 was unveiled in London Monday (30 January) alongside a WHO roadmap on how to do it.

Non-governmental organisations, aid donors and 13 global drug companies came together, in the largest coordinated effort on NTDs, to back the 'London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases'.

Almost US$800 million was pledged and new research initiatives were launched at what Margaret Chan, WHO secretary-general, called the "most coordinated initiative" in her 30 years in public health.

The declaration agreed to "sustain, expand and extend" drug supplies to help eradicate Guinea worm disease; to eliminate lymphatic filariasis, leprosy, sleeping sickness and blinding trachoma; and to control schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthes, Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and river blindness (onchocerciasis).

These ten diseases are some of the 17 NTDs that affect more than a billion people globally.

Friday, 02 December 2011 12:11

Written by Niamh Griffin

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A wheelchair made from a deck-chair, cardboard plaster casts and sedatives only available to wealthy patients. These are just some of the challenges for surgeons working in East, Central and Southern Africa according to Dr Jean O’ Sullivan.

Dr. O’Sullivan, consultant in accident and emergency medicine at Tallaght hospital in Dublin, says a road accident in Ireland might be attended by 15 medical staff where only one person could be available in rural Kenya.

“You can have one person dealing with an overwhelming situation. So something we would think is easy to fix like a ruptured liver or fracture becomes impossible. There are so few doctors an intern could be the only doctor in a country hospital,” she says.

Responding to the need for more staff, Dr O’Sullivan founded Global Emergency Care Skills (GECS) to provide training for doctors and nurses in developing countries in 2008.

Wednesday, 19 October 2011 09:34

Written by World and Media

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Girls or their families that refuse circumcision against the will of their villages may become social outcasts. But using a new community-based approach, two UN agencies hope that female genital mutilation can be eliminated within a generation. UNFPA and UNICEF are using a human rights-based approach to encourage communities to act collectively. This approach has led some 6,000 communities across Africa to abandon the practice, usually through a public declaration.

Female genital mutilation/cutting has devastating short- and long-term impacts on the lives of women and girls, say the UN. It can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, psychological disorders and even death (WHO).

The impact even extends to the next generation. Death rates among babies during and immediately after birth are higher for those born to mothers who have undergone the practice, by an estimated one to two babies per 100 deliveries.

More than 90 million African women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation - 100-140 million worldwide - according to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates. In Africa, about 3 million girls are at risk annually. It is mostly carried out on girls aged 0-15.

Friday, 16 September 2011 09:45

Written by Gozde Zorlu

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Reducing the incidence of malaria could also drastically reduce the number of deaths from bacterial infections among children in Africa, a study has found.

"Children who are protected from malaria are less likely to catch bacterial infections. It therefore means that controlling malaria will give an additional benefit," Anthony Scott, the lead author and a researcher at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, in Kenya, told SciDev.Net

Invasive bacterial diseases, such as pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis, are a major cause of illness and death among children in Africa, with mortality in Kenya as high as 22 per cent of those infected.