Pollution as big a health problem as malaria or TB, finds report

31/10/201330/10/2013 Stephen 1 Must Read, developing world, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Health, News, Pollution and Toxics, Science/Tech, sustainability Blacksmith Institute, Disease, malaria, New York City, pollution, Public health, toxics, Tuberculosis, World Health Organization

Haina, Dominican Republic - Children are developmentally impaired as a result of lead poisoning — Haina, Dominican Republic – Children are developmentally impaired as a result of lead poisoning

Industrial pollutants harm the health of 125 million people,

many of whom live in the developing world and work in mining

Stephen Leahy

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 October 2012 12.30 BST

Waste from mining, lead smelters, industrial dumps and other toxic sites affects the health of an estimated 125 million people in 49 low- and middle-income countries. This unrecognised health burden is on the scale of malaria or tuberculosis (TB), a new report has found.

This year’s World’s worst pollution problems (pdf) report was published on Tuesday by the Blacksmith Institute in partnership with Green Cross Switzerland. It documents, for the first time, the public health impact of industrial pollutants – lead, mercury, chromium, radionuclides and pesticides – in the air, water and soil of developing countries.

“This is an extremely conservative estimate,” said Bret Ericson of the Blacksmith Institute, a small international NGO based in New York City. “We’ve investigated 2,600 toxic sites in the last four years, [but] we know there are far more.”

The US has an estimated 100,000-300,000 toxic sites, mainly factories or industrial areas, but toxic sites in the low- and middle-income countries assessed in the report are often in residential areas. “We see a lot of disease when we go into these communities,” said Ericson. “But we were surprised the health burden was so high – as much as malaria.”

Click to read full story: Pollution as big a health problem as malaria or TB, finds report | Global development | guardian.co.uk.

Warmer Climate Gives Malaria New Hunting Grounds

31/08/201001/09/2010 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, News africa, Anopheles, climate change, Infectious disease, malaria

Malaria spreading to new regions while millions wasted on vaccines that cannot work for more than 2 years [New Article]

By Stephen Leahy

CHICAGO, U.S., Feb 19 (IPS)

Climate change is bringing malaria to regions of Africa where the disease was previously unknown, researchers report from the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago this week.

Interestingly, the Arctic, where climate change is happening fastest, is the best place to study how warming temperatures are affecting infectious disease transmission.

[Note: Diseases are expected to increase in proportion to the decline/degradation of natural environment experts at Harvard said in my 2008 article “Doctor” Nature in Danger — Stephen]

Insect-transmitted diseases, primarily malaria, kill 3,000 people in Africa each day, said Andy Dobson of Princeton University in the United States.

Understanding how global warming is altering temperatures and the ecology and ranges of the malaria-transmitting Anopheles mosquito is crucial to understanding the dynamics of how insect-transmitted diseases like malaria will change, Dobson told IPS.

“Ironically, we’re spending huge amounts of money on trying to develop vaccines for malaria but the best possible vaccine we could make wouldn’t last for longer than two years,” he said.

That’s because the natural lifetime of immunity to malaria is perhaps two years and to eradicate malaria using a vaccine would require vaccinating everyone every year because the malaria parasite evolves quickly, he explained.

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“We’re not going to be able to do that,” Dobson added.

Instead scientists need to be able to understand and project how and where malaria outbreaks will occur under the altered conditions of climate change. However, there is very little data or research on disease transmission in the field. Rather, the focus has been on developing vaccines and genetic analysis of the malaria parasite and mosquito genome – and that “tells us nothing about transmission”, he said.

“A sad testimony to how the (U.S.) National Institutes of Health and the Gates Foundation spend their money,” Dobson told IPS. Continue reading →

New Diagnostic Tool Could Slash Malaria Deaths in Children

17/12/2008 Stephen Africa, developing world, Health, News biomarkers, malaria

wed-child-tree-planting1 By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Dec 8 (IPS) – Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds, but a new diagnostic breakthrough may cut that devastating death toll, Canadian scientists announced Sunday.

The discovery of “biomarkers” — a telltale biological signature in children’s blood — that identify two of the most lethal forms of malaria was revealed at the annual meetings of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, Louisiana last week.

“A child with a fever may be treated in a clinic with anti-malarial drugs, but that won’t be enough to treat cerebral malaria,” said Conrad Liles, a tropical disease specialist affiliated with Toronto’s McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC). Continue reading →

Vitamin A and Zinc Supplements Cuts Malaria in Africa

26/02/200806/03/2008 Stephen Africa, Agriculture/Food, developing world, Health malaria, nutrition, vitamin a, zinc

Feb 13 (IPS) – Malaria continues to cut a swathe through Africa, which accounts for most cases of the disease and the majority of malaria-related deaths. Globally, more than a million people die from malaria each year. In the case of children, this translates into a death every 30 seconds, according to the World Health Organisation.

A study by Burkina Faso’s Health Sciences Research Institute (Institut de recherche en sciences de la santé, IRSS) may point the way to reducing malaria’s toll on children, however.

IRSS research director Jean-Bosco Ouedraogo and his colleagues report in the current issue of ‘Nutrition Journal‘ that giving vitamin A and zinc supplements to children has been shown to reduce the incidence of malaria among them by a third. The journal is an online publication managed from London.

New ways of fighting malaria are critically needed. In recent years, the disease’s growing resistance to drugs and insecticides (malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes) has made malaria control much more challenging.

Ouedraogo spoke to IPS science correspondent Stephen Leahy.